INTERMEZZO 1
by ArkhamGirl
Summary: "I promise you, my lovelies... It will be unforgettable." After 'Her Fall', Zuse has to help a certain backup establishing itself in Tron City, while CLU forces him into betrayal. But only when one friend after another dies in a series of murders and he threatens to lose everything, Zuse begins to question his entertainment shaped world... Rated M for violence and sexual content
1. Chapter 1

**_Author's Note: For those who have read my other ffs: I AM BAAAAACK, PROGRAMMES, FEELS, FEEEEEELS EVERYWHERE!_**

**_For those who haven't: Hello._**

**_I would recommend you to read them, since, as the name already implies, this little piece of art is an intermezzo between _****TRON: Downfall****_ and _****TRON: Legend****_. _**

**_But you don't have to, because most of it will be explained anyway :) _**

**_It begins exactly at the end of the chapter called _****Beta Test****_, after CLU's visit in the End Of Line Club._**

**_I have to say, it is sooooo much fun to write this. I really hope you'll like it!_**

**_ENJOY and REVIEW, my lovely programmes! :)_**

**END OF LINE**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 1<strong>

Still with a shocked expression on his face he just stood there, staring straightforward.

Zuse couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The feeling of fear paralised him entirely.

What was he supposed to do now? He definitely did not want to betray Susan, get involved with the one he had regarded as the enemy cycles-long, despite the fact that CLU had let him rebuild his club. That didn't cleanse him from his deeds, not in the least. He had the ISOs on his conscience, Quorra, hundreds of basics that were well-disposed to him and now he had banished his closest confidant, his best friend Susan as well. No, he surely didn't want to make common cause with this monster. But this was no matter of wanting anymore, CLU had made that abundantly clear.

Zuse had no choice. He HAD TO become CLU's spy, otherwise he would end up like Kurtz, a member of the slaughtered resistance, right in front of him. Meaniningless, forgotten, derezzed. But what if Susan found out about it? Would she understand? Would she forgive him?

His knees felt so week all of a sudden that he was close to collapsing, so he clung to his cane, stemmed it into the ground, supporting him.

He didn't want to think. The thoughts of the probable, incredibly negative consequences that both of the two options would entail nearly drove him crazy.

If he chose Susan's side, he would secure her affection and could sustain a pure conscience. Though, these advantages wouldn't help him in any way, since he would get killed by CLU for his decisions, before being able to enjoy them. If he chose the side of the latter, he would ensure his own survival, indeed, but would cause others much suffering and maybe he lost Susan thereby too.

His death or the one of others?

Susan or CLU?

Pain or pain?

There Zuse dashed off. In the elevator he pressed the button for Level 0 and while it went down let his fingertips tap on the wall nervously. As soon as he got out, he hastened to his light roadsterhe had used to bring the almost dead Susan here only two millicycles ago. Flooring the accelerator immediately, he manoeuvred the Car through the shining streets of Tron City, not minding the traffic rules in the least, since noone was on the road at this time anyway.

When he finally arrived at his destination, he abruptly brought the roadster to a standstill by a sharp turn to the right. Zuse scurried into a narrow alley where he touched the wall to his left on a particular spot, whereby a small pad with numbers on it lit up and he typed in the code he himself had programmed just a few millicycles ago. A part of the wall opened with a hiss, revealing the dark corridor behind it which Zuse entered now without hesitating. He was surrounded by total blackness that only retreated when he reached a bright light at the end of the corridor.

It was a well-lit round room. The biggest source of illumination weren't the luminous stripes on the wall, though, but a block of stone in the middle, encircled by an opaque white field of force.

When Zuse approached it, he slowed down his pace until he came to a stand completely. With an emotionless expression on his face he looked down at the black-haired programme that lay on top of the block.

Yes, Zuse didn't want to think of all the desperation within himself right now. He didn't want death in his thoughts. He needed a distraction. He needed life.

Kyto had to live and it had to be Zuse who saved his life. This was what would make him forget the inner fight with himself.

Zuse lifted his hands, letting the gloved fingertips, which now began to glow in white, run around the circuitry sign on his chest, so that the tailcoat-like part of his suit fell off, providing him a perfect ability to move. He sat down on a smaller block of stone near the programme's head that ascended from the ground and with quick movements of his hands navigated through the green shimmering digits of his now opened code.

He had already wasted too much time, had lost hope in being able of saving this programme's life when he found him earlier. Shortly after Zuse had patched up Susan in his lounge, he had begun to search for a backup of her friend. To him this Kyto meant nothing, quite the contrary, he didn't like him at all, especially since he had grievously offended him in front of his guests, though he knew that it would break Susan's heart if he died definitely. And Zuse had made a find, indeed, but after the initial euphoria he realised that the backup was enormously damaged, barely savable, particularly as it didn't even activate itself after the death of its original as usual. He had been able to put the programme into a force field which kept errors from spreading, though, it did not stop the process of deresolution. There was, as he had thought, nothing more Zuse could do for Kyto, which was why he didn't even tell her about the backup, didn't want to raise hopes where there weren't any.

But now his ambition was awoke again, driven by his own desperation.

No programme was irreparable, as long as it hadn't crumbled into pieces completely. It was immensely difficult, indeed, required full concentration and a load of luck, but maybe Zuse would manage to rescue Kyto.

So he fought his way through the ERROR reports and began to recondition all files as fast as possible. It would take an eternity and most probably wouldn't work anyway - the odds were at about 15% - Zuse was aware of that, but he simply had to try it.

A quarter of a millicycle passed by, half a millicycle, without Zuse allowing hinself to take a break. Early on the fist symptoms of the fact that he hadn't slept for almost a whole daycycle because of the problems with Susan already had made their presence felt, drained him of strength, though, he didn't let it affect his performance, concentrated on the numbers, letters and shapes in front of him even more, moving his fingers even faster. Giving up was no option.

Yet again he perused the whole code in wiping movements, checked it for remaining orange spots, for errors, but when he couldn't find any, Zuse let his arms he had held up the whole time sink.

After a three-quarter millicycle of work, six hours in User-time, he finally made it. The code of Kyto's backup was free from defects. He had had to remove the memory store, in order to avoid additional complicatons, but it could be inserted into his system later anyway, so it was dispensable at the present time. Now the moment of truth had come.

Did all of that make a difference? It was still quite likely that he began too late and the surface sequence had already collapsed by now, was only kept together by the field of force. In this case the activation would not succeed.

Zuse closed the codes.

Laboriously, he stood up, positioned himself next to the block and deactivated the force field at its side, letting the white gleam disappear. Small hovering letters lit up.

AKTIVATE PROGRAM?

YES - NO

The eyes still fixed on the black-haired programme, Zuse tipped on 'YES'.

...

Nothing happened.

Zuse frowned. Again he pressed 'YES', but the result remained the same.

"Dammit...", he uttered quietly, tipping onto the luminous 'YES' again and again. "Come one, come on...", Zuse brought forth between clenched teeth. Then he quickly wiped the menu array away and, in a rage, let his fist plummet onto the chest of the programme. "COME ON!"

There it lifted its lids, took a deep breath and came to sit at one go.

Zuse backed off. For a moment he just stared in shock at the quickly breathing Kyto. Then he shook his head lightly to regain his composure and stepped up to him, gently put his hands onto his shoulders, which made him look up with widened eyes.

"Calm down.", he tried to appease him with a soft voice, though Kyto just kept staring at Zuse in fear, breathing morbidly.

"Calm yourself, I said..." He held up one Hand right in front of the face of the programme to force him to look at it. With the palm pointing up, he raised it, saying "Breathe in..." and at lowering it again "... and out. In... and out." Zuse repeated the whole thing a few times, until he noticed how Kyto's chest stopped moving that fast.

"Where am I?", he brought out.

Zuse sat down on the small block, where he had been sitting during his work. "You are in some sort of healing and activation room."

Kyto looked around with squinted eyes, before letting his eyes rest on Zuse again. "Who are you?"

"My name is..." He thought about it for a moment. The former Kyto had learnt about his true identity from Susan. It would certainly be wiser, if he took the chance to undo her little mistake now. "... Castor. My Name is Castor."

Kyto nodded lightly, looking to the ground, as if he wanted to confirm to his system that it should burn this name into his mind. Then he raised his eyes again. "And... and who am I?", he said, fear resounding in his voice.

Zuse examined his features. He could understand his anxiety. It had to be really frightening to wake up in an entirely unfamiliar environment, with no clue about who one was, to what purpose one existed, completely vulnerable, helpless.

"Your name...", Zuse began eventually. "... is Kyto. You are a programme of the Grid, written to improve the data traffic of the system, thus a mechanic."

"The Grid...", he repeated quietly. "... created by Kevin Flynn."

Zuse wanted to smile softly, though, the exhaustion kept him from doing that. "Good. It is set in your source code. That means I do not have to teach you every detail by myself...", Zuse sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"Castor?"

"Yes?"

"You... are wearing clothes...", he said hesitating. "... I'm not..."

Zuse opened his eyes again. "Oh. Right. One moment." He activated Kyto's code near his head again. "Lay down and don't move."

Kyto did as he was told, noticed, however, that it was incredibly difficult for him to not move. Just after his activation he was pumped full with energy he urgently had to let out somehow. Though, now he had to follow the instructions of this white-haired man.

Zuse typed in a few orders, whereupon little black squares stretched over Kyto's skin until he was covered to his neck. He had hardly sat up after Zuse closed the codes, when suddenly the primarily dull patches on his body began to gloGreene gaudy green. Zuse eyed him for a moment.

The green of the former Kyto had been paler, softer, definitely not like that, rich and loud. He blamed it on the energy boost. Probably, it would change back to normal later.

Zuse walked up to the back of the room, sensing Kyto's attentive gazes in his back, and picked up the disc he had prepared earlier when bringing the backup here. "Back to me.", he said, when reaching the block again and put the disc onto the input on Kyto's suit, feeling in his hands how the programme flinched at the synchronisation.

Then Zuse positioned in front of Kyto again. "So...", he sighed. "How are you now?"

"I'm fine, I guess."

"Can you stand up?"

Slowly Kyto let his right foot glide to the ground. Then the left, but when he tried to push away from the rock, his knees gave way, making him fall forward. Zuse was barely able to catch him.

"Careful...", he said, helping Kyto up again. "It is perfectly normal to not be in control of all functions after the activation. That is why I am here. I'll help you, alright?"

Kyto, supporting himself on Zuse's shoulders with shaky hands and trying to stand upright, whispered: "Alright..."

Zuse put his hands on Kyto's sides. "We will take a few steps together now. If you fall, I catch you."

"Okay."

Bit by bit Kyto placed one foot in front of the other. He was afraid of his legs giving way again, but the tight grip of the programme opposite to him stabilised him and gave him the feeling of being protected. With him he was comfortable and felt stronger with every step, quite contrary to Zuse who desperately tried to hide that Kyto's weight drained on the strength of his already exhausted limbs.

More and more they approached the exit.

"Do you think you can take a step on your own?", Zuse asked, looking into Kyto's green eyes.

As his opposite did the same with Zuse's, he noticed their intensive colour. "You... you really got... weirdly bright eyes, Castor, did you know that?"

Zuse narrowed his eyes to slits, let go off Kyto, taking one step back so that his counterpart stumbled, quickly leaning onto the wall next to him to not fall. Zuse smirked. Walking past Kyto towards the room with the block of stone again, he said: "The colour is called silver. Save this word on your disc, before you little rascal have to call my gorgeous eyes weird again." He picked up the part of his suit he had taken off earlier, put it on in pacing back and offered Kyto his Arm, which he quickly clung to.

Slowly Zuse guided Kyto out to his light roadster, whose appearance the young programme took in with a wide marvelling smile. "Wow! That looks amazing! Can I have a closer-"

"No.", Zuse interrupted him, while hurrying around the vehicle. "I want to get home as fast as possible. You will explore this world and everything in it soon enough. Now, please get in."

Kyto hesitated, but let himself sink on the passenger seat yet.

He admired Zuse at driving, how he sped through the streets with adamant, though tired gaze forward, as if it was the simpliest thing to do.

When they arrived at their destination, getting out of the car, Kyto looked up with his mouth agape. "Now THAT is a huge tower!"

"Mhm..."

During the lift ride up Kyto stared out the windows with a sparkle in his eyes, absorbed every detail he could detect from the increasing height. Zuse was glad to not have to answer even more questions, he was far to tired for that at the moment. The torrent of queries would come soon enough anyway.

As the elevator doors opened, Zuse marched right into the club silently, whereas Kyto entered it slow paced, since he wanted to take in his evironment in amazement. "It's awesome here! You really have a wonderful home, Castor!"

Zuse, picking up his glass cane which he had left standing next to the big bar the whole time, paused. Yes, the club was his home. CLU must not take it from him, by no means. "Thank you..." He took a few steps back, beckoned Kyto, who still stood in the small corridor marvelling at his surroundings, over, letting his cane tap on the ground, whereupon the stairs to his private lounge hovered up.

Kyto laughed. He really liked this place.

"After you, please.", Zuse said with a little bow.

Kyto looked at him in bafflement, then smiled widely and ascended the staircase. Instantly, he took a look around, while Zuse went past him, behind the small bar and got a few blankets out of a drawer that moved out with a hiss. "I realise that you are all of a tizzy after your activation and almost bursting with energy, but believe me, this is just the first wave of excitement. You will get very tired very soon and therefore I suggest that we settle down for the night.", he spoke in the meantime. "Besides..." He put the blankets onto the counter, giving Kyto a look full of exhaustion. "... it's a personal concern of mine to have some peace and quiet now."

Kyto thought for a moment, but agreed then. "Alright."

"Good. You can lay down right there."

Zuse pointed at the big couch at the right side of the lounge, where Kyto sat down now, checking how it felt and decided then that it was pleasantly soft, especially in comprison to the rock he was lying on earlier. Yes, he would be able to keep a perfect sleeping cycle hereon. Meanwhile, Zuse had brought Kyto's blanket, put it down onto the side table together with a bottle of fluorescent blue liquid.

Kyto listened to Zuse whilst lying down, wrapping up into the dark blue blanket.

"So, here you have some energy in case you wake up and feel weak. If you need anything, wake me, however, I would be very grateful if you didn't do that for every trifle. And please do not leave the lounge in the meantime. Of course you can serve yourself from the bar, but please... don't break anything. At this point I wish you a nice sleeping cycle."

Before he could move away from Kyto, the black-haired programme got hold of his trousers.

"Thanks.", Kyto said smiling. "You activated me, gave me a chance to live. I don't know you yet, but I really appreciate what you did for me. I owe you something, Castor."

Zuse eyed him for a moment, then said: "I didn't do it for you. But to be honest... I am glad to not have to be alone now. You don't have to thank me. And now go to sleep, Kyto. Tomorrow, when you explore the Grid, you will need all of your energy."

With these words Zuse stepped over to the couch on the other side of the room and lay down with his own blanket. The lights in the lounge and the club went out on its own.

Zuse was glad to be so exhausted that he just fell asleep without his thoughts finding the way to one of the many negative experiences of the last day cycles.


	2. Chapter 2,1

_**Author's Note: Hey there :) I split this chap up, since it was too long to post it as a whole, but don't worry the second half will follow in a nano.**_

_**For those of you who like Zuse/Gem action... Well, you'll like this chap I guess ;) Plus, there are some adorable bromance moments that I hope you will love just like I love them ^^**_

_**Just one more thing: I thought I will update this story every monday and thursday, would that be okay for you? I just want to make a routine out of it, since I really got lazy with my other ffs and I don't want you to have to wait that long anymore :)**_

_**So ENJOY, my lovely programmes, and please REVIEW!**_

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 2.1<strong>

"I know it's quite modest, but unfortunately I could not find anything better in sich a short time."

Kyto curiously looked around in the little room, which couldn't be larger than 12m². There was a bed in the left corner of the back side, directly under a pretty dirty window that was half covered by tarnished stripes of metal. Above it ran an empty shelf to the other side of the room. On the right was a tiny communication console, beside it a disc input. It was his new home and he loved it.

"I will make further saftey arrangements for your door. You never know what the programmes here in the lower levels intend to do...", Zuse continued, totally anxious to not brush anything at this place. He would have liked to accommodate Kyto somewhere else, preferably in the top level, close to him, but there one had to wait half an eternity for the licence for an apartment and he urgently had to live alone, especially after Kyto had constantly woken him the past night for trivial reasons. Furthermore, he wasn't as important to him as to spend a small fortune for his dwelling.

Nevertheless, Zuse felt a bit uneasy to let Kyto alone in this area. "If you need anything you can call me through your console anytime. Besides, I have compiled a digital archive for you, where you can find all important information about the Grid, before you get your memory store back. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me, okay?"

Kyto, standing in the middle of the room with his back facing him, turned around smiling and flung his arms around Zuse's neck, giving him a tight hug. "Thank you!"

Zuse froze, just brought out with widened eyes: "Alright, alright... But please, let go of me."

His counterpart did as he was told, though, didn't stop to beam at him. "Sorry, it wasn't my intension to creep you out. I'm just so happy that I have someone who helps me getting my bearings! You are a real friend, Castor."

Desperately, Zuse tried to avoid eye contact. It made him highly uncomfortable that the programme that looked exactly like the one he had detested so much let loose such words. "Uh... Yes, I uh... No, I am really not your... Have fun in your new apartment."

He turned to go, but Kyto held him back. "Hey, I thought you show me a bit of the Grid?"

"No, I have to go back to my club. As its owner I have plenty of work and then there's still this... Nevermind. You stay right here. Read a few entries of the archive, until I get back."

"Okay...", Kyto said sulking, which Zuse ignored completely, before he closed the door behind him, stepping into the corridor in front of Kyto's apartment. As fast as possible he set out for his club. He just couldn't bear this despicable region any longer.

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><p>Dead slow he shifted the two bottles in one direction until they finally stood in the perfect place. Zuse stepped around the big bar of the End Of Line Club, regarding his opus with a pleased smile on his lips.<p>

Since he came back from the lower levels, he had kept himself busy with getting everything in the club in perfect order. He had cleared away litter from the previous evening, had cleaned the counter, tested the stereo equipment of his DJs and now he'd also topped up the bar with full bottles and placed them on the right positions, so that it resulted in a totally harmonic picture. He knew that he didn't have to get this whole work done actually - usually his staff was responsible for the arrangements before the club's opening - but he needed something to keep his mind away from negative thoughts. Besides, he believed that only he himself could get everything utterly right, just the way it had to be. Zuse was a perfectionist. And now that everything else in his life went down the tubes, at least the EOLC had to be perfect.

Suddenly a quiet *BLUM* rang out, signalising that somebody in the lift was going up. Zuse went behind the bar again, checking all the details one more time.

"I already prepared everything for you, Shaddix. And yes, I know that it sounds fussy, but could you please pay attention on placing the bottles exactly where they are placed now this evening?", Zuse said, eyeing the luminous liquids in front of him.

There he heard the bartender clear his throat, making Zuse turn around.

Next to Shaddix stood a woman with the lookings of a supermodel. Tall, willowy, busty and a face that could have been chiselled by angels, which didn't change anything about the fact that a wave of discomfort and scepticism overcame Zuse at her sight. He had taken this siren out a few times and they really were on very good terms with each other, however, the last time he had seen her, she and the other sirens had stared at him, Shaddix and his two DJ firends as they were dragging the half-dead Susan out of the arena.

"Gem!", he called with a frozen smile. "To what do I owe the honour of this visit?" He and Shaddix exchanged quick looks, before Zuse nodded inconspiciously, whereupon the bartender silently took the disc from his back, keeping his eyes on the siren that hip-swingingly strolled over to Zuse now.

"I am here to ask how she is doing and how YOU are doing.", she replied in a soft voice, which he wasn't used to hear from her. Normally, Gem spoke with a certain undertone of seductiveness, though, now it was not to pick out at all.

"She?" Zuse's expression got more reserved, more strained. If this was about Susan, he could not allow himself to make any mistakes. Why did this siren ask for information about her? Did CLU send her perhaps?

"Arris. I mean, Susan. This is her real name, isn't it? I couldn't watch the games fully, since I had to work meanwhile, but I caught the part where her identity was revealed." When Zuse just pierced her with his wary gaze, she added: "Did she survive? I saw you getting her out of the arena, but her wounds looked quite deep."

Zuse slowly stepped around the bar again. "Why do you want to know that?"

Gem gave him a questioning look. Then she rolled her eyes, sighed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Okay, I am aware that sirens are said to be dumb and, believe me, there even are some in my team to whom this reputation pertains, but not to me. I know, you don't trust me anymore because I saw you saving her, and I know that your butler behind me is only waiting for your permission to delete me, in order that I can't tell CLU about your little rescue mission-"

Shaddix frowned. "How did this broad just call me?"

"-but you and Susan are good friends, otherwise you wouldn't have risked something that dangerous. And that's also the reason why I'm here. I don't know Susan, she seemed nice and funny when I came to your club, but basically I'm nowhere near having an emotional bond with her, in contrast to you. I like you and Susan seems to be very important to you, therefore I just have to ask if she's okay and thus if you're okay. I wanted to be nice. But if I'm not welcomed here anymore just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then I'll better go now." She turned on her heel and tottered back towards the elevator.

"Gem."

The siren paused and faced Zuse again. He seemed to think for a moment, before speaking up: "I am fine. Thank you for your concern. And of course you are still welcomed here. It's just... I cannot allow you to know too much about Susan. Do you understand?"

Her slightly annoyed expression adopted softer features and she let her defensive posture fall. "I don't have to know anything about her. Don't worry, I will not quiz you about her or the like." She sighed, approaching him with a smile. "And now that you answered my question, wouldn't it be good if we continued where we left off?"

Zuse smirked. "Shaddix?", he called out to the bartender, who still stood near the elevator. "Would you be so kind as to fix this lady a drink?"

Shaddix, who had already put his disc on his back again by this time, pushed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and shrugged. "I'm off-duty, amigo."

Zuse raised a brow. "Then why are you here so early before the opening?"

"I wanted to prepare everything, but you already did that for me. Plus, you should tell HER how to speak to me properly at first. So, I'll enjoy my free time now. Ciao, programmes!" He waved at the two and disappeared in the lift.

"Why do you let your attendants talk to you like that?", Gem asked, while Zuse filled a glass for her with light blue liquid.

Zuse laughed. "Shaddix may do that. He is a good friend of mine and has helped me often enough the last millicycles, as you've noticed in the arena. Besides, I think it's important to offer a pleasant atmosphere to my employees."

"Oh, in the arena it's completely different. If I didn't take drastic measures constantly, chaos would start to rule, as stubborn as the most sirens behave..."

"Which bad traits beauty brings along... Oh, I know that all too well.", he said grinning, stroking over his own white hair.

Gem giggled, though, there she got interrupted by the hiss of the elevator doors.

"Back ag-", Zuse began, but then his smile died down, as he saw how 2 sentry programmes, who held Shaddix' arms firmly, stepped out, led by CLUs main secretary Jarvis. "Gem, it was nice to see you again, but I guess it is about time for you to leave, dearest.", Zuse said without taking his gaze from the programmes with orange circuitry colour. Gem followed his instructions at once, hurrying into the elevator.

"You wouldn't have to send this pretty little thing away.", Jarvis said with a grin, which made Zuse suppress the urge to gag that his face caused in him.

"What are you doing here?", he just asked.

Jarvis gave him a faked surprised look, slowly shaking his head. "Now, now, yesterday you've been such a good host, the liberator told me. Don't we get an appropriate welcome? Where are the famous EOLC drinks, I heard so much about on the streets?"

"Well, your henchmen do not seem to let go of my bartender anytime soon, so you will have to go without the famous drinks. And now answer my question: What is CLUs groveller doing here shortly after he assured me that I have time to reflect upon everything until our next meeting?"

"Well..." Jarvis inhaled, didn't say anything though, but furrowed his brows. "What in Grid's name is a groveller?"

"An ass licker."

Instantly, Shaddix gained an angry look from Jarvis for his remark and the sentries squeezed his arms even harder. "Man, that was worth it!", the bartender brought out at pains.

Zuse hid his concern behind his stony face. "Well?"

"After the newest developments your services would be needed sooner than originally planned."

"Newest developments?"

"I am not athorized to provide any information to you about that matter. However, I'm positive that you will find out about it very soon if you accept the job. So, what is your answer?"

Zuse kept silent for a long while, just stared at Jarvis. Then he whispered: "It's all just pro forma, right?" Louder he spoke: "CLU already knows about my decision, since he never really gave me a choice. You can tell him, your oh so great 'liberator', that I assent to his offer. I will play his little snitch, but only on these conditions..." He walked up to Jarvis, giving him a dangerous glare. As he spoke, his voice adopted a dark tone so that every word was emphasised. "He guarantees protection for my club, my staff and myself. And he won't enter these premises ever again. Is that understood?"

Jarvis looked away, raised his brows. "Sounds fair." Over his shoulder he called: "Release him.", whereupon the sentries relinquished their holds of Shaddix. Jarvis looked at Zuse again. "CLU will be delighted to hear about your decision. Thanks for your cooperation and welcome to the team."

He held out his Hand to him, which Zuse didn't deign to look at, just kept staring into Jarvis' eyes. "Leave.", he said coldly.

CLU's secretary curled his lips, turned on his heel and, together with the sentries, left the club with his head held high.

Only when the elevator doors had shut completely, Zuse closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. He hadn't even noticed that he had caught his breath all the time.

"CLU wants you to spy on others for him?", Shaddix asked frowning.

Zuse didn't lift his lids whilst speaking. "Now don't play the disappointed friend, yes? You know exactly that CLU leaves me no other option. I would be stupid if I let it happen that I lose my club or that I get derezzed just because I usually don't share any information some programme confided to me." His own words resounded in his head. It sounded as if he tried to convince himself that he did the right thing, however, the bad feelings that overcame him now told a whole different story.

"And what about Susan? Will you tell her?"

"How am I supposed to do that?" Zuse eventually looked at Shaddix. "I don't even know if she reached Eckert safely."

"Didn't she send you a message?"

Zuse replied with sadly looking to the ground. Silence spread, which filled Zuse with even more gloom.

There he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not disappointed in you. If you think you have to do that, I will not stand in your way, but support you. I'll help you wherever I can. But don't let CLU put you over the barrel, pal.", Shaddix said with a soft voice.

Zuse took a deep breath and got hold of Shaddix' hand, squeezing it lightly. "Thank you."

"And don't worry," the bartender laughed, leaning against the counter. "I'll put every bottle down where it's placed now."

Zuse watched him walking behind the bar and surveying every detail.

Shaddix... After Zuse had found him after the Purge and activated him, he had become one of his best friends. All those cycles he had been seperated from Susan, establishing his business step by step, he had been at his side, always making him laugh with his casual nature. Thinking of how he must have felt when Susan had come across Zuse again and he had concerned himself about her almost exclusively, made him feel extremely guilty now. But Shaddix never complained, never criticised Zuse, helped hm wherever he could. And what did Zuse do? He kept the thing with CLU a secret. No, he owed the bartender to be honest.

"Shad?"

"Mhm?", he muttered, obviously trying to fix the positon of each bottle on his mind.

"Kyto had a backup and I activated it"

Shaddix froze. After a few moments he slowly turned his head to Zuse, repeatedly blinking. "What?"

Zuse let out a slightly sheepish laugh. "Yes, I know, I should have told you already..."

"I thought you told Susan he didn't have any backups."

Zuse fell silent and looked away.

Shaddix put his Hand to his mouth in shock. "You lied to her!" He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Let me guess: You don't even know if she already sent you a message, because you didn't check. You're too much of a chicken to talk to her, because then she might finds out about Kyto and CLU, right?"

Zuse rubbed his temples. Silence spread, which Zuse broke only after a while, whispering: "You think she will hate me once she knows?"

Shaddix thought for a moment, before shrugging. "Nah. Sue is cool. I'm sure you had a good reason to withhold the thing with Kyto from her, didn't you?"

"I was firmly convinced that the backup was damaged beyond repair."

"See? If you tell her THAT exactly, she'll be mad at you for a nano probably and then forget about it. And the matter with CLU... Well, he threatened you. Besides, you didn't get up to anything bad yet, so, I believe, you should tell her about it as soon as possible, before it all comes as a real bombshell!"

"You are right..." Zuse sighed. "The trouble is that I should avoid contact to Susan for now. CLU surely watches my every step and must not get scent of her whereabouts. As soon as he puts more confidence in me, I will geht in touch with her again and tell her the whole truth."

The bartender nodded. "Sounds good, amigo." Then his expression adopted reflective features. "Hey, by the way, I find it kind of... surprising that you activated this Kyto-guy. I mean, he was nice, always praised my drinks, but towards you, I have to say, he behaved like a real dick. Didn't it surprise him as well?"

"No, he doesn't know anything anymore. In consideration of his condition I had to remove the memory store, otherwise the system would have had a break down, most probably. I will insert it later, though, once it is stabilised. And then..." Zuse smirked. "... Let's see what a face he pulls when finding out who saved his life."

Shaddix laughed. "Oh, I want a copy of that, man!"

* * *

><p>Like always the club was full to bursting with programmes.<p>

The previous evening he had cursed them all in thoughts, hated them for not feeling as frustrated has he did and that they didn't admire Susan anymore, but detest her. Today she seemed to have disappeared from their minds again. So loudly they have cheered for her at all her victories in the arena and now they didn't attribute a spark of meaning to her anymore. Zuse knew that he actually should despise them just as much as a few millicycles earlier, though, he didn't. He also didn't love them like before Susan's Fall. He just envied them. He envied them having reasons for being happy and not just have to act as if they were, just like him at the moment.

He patted the arm of the programme, that believed to have just said something hilarious, and faked a laugh.

"I get myself another drink, yes?", he said, wounding through the masses of guests to the bar.

"Enjoy yourself?", Shaddix asked busy with wiping over the counter.

Zuse smiled widely and leant forward, so that only the bartender could hear him. "Do me a favour and erase me."

The bearded man laughed. "Was this guys' joke really that bad?"

"Oh, you have no idea, my dear..." He looked around, still grinning. "I would have never thought, that I could ever not feel like partying at all."

"So, why don't you retire to your lounge?", came a seductive voice from behind him.

Zuse turned around, maintaining his faked smile. "Hello, Gem!" She positioned herself next to him, while he told Shaddix to fix her his favourite drink. As he turned to the siren again, he took in a deep breath to say something, though, let the air out with a sigh, the smile falling a bit. "I am profoundly sorry for having asked you to leave so harshly."

"Don't worry, it didn't bother me. But..." Gem spoke in a lowered voice. "... you seem to have problems with CLU, right?"

Zuse's smile got bitter. "Yet again I apologise, since I have to tell you that this is-"

"-none of my business, I know. Forgive me my curiosity. Basically, I don't care about it anyway, I was just worried about you..."

There a smirk played around his lips. "YOU are worried about ME? How flattering..."

Accepting the drink from Shaddix, she said: "Of course I did. Noone ever managed to solicit my attention for more than a few day cycles. You, however, attracted it to yourself since our first encounter a quarter of a cycle ago. I don't exactly know how you do that, but there's something that permanently makes me want to visit you in your club..."

Zuse let out a winged laugh. "I really must say that I never met someone like you! You catch me committing a crime, it leaves you cold. You notice me being in an unpleasant kind of contact with CLU, you couldn't care less. Instead of quizzing or rebuking me, like some others would certainly do, you just come her and tell me that I have been on your mind for a long time. My lovely Gem, my affection for you grows and grows!"

Without interrupting eye contact with Zuse she sipped on her drink, before looking at it and putting it down on the counter. "Hm. Considering that everyone refers to those as the best drinks in the entire city, they don't taste as sensational as I expected. I like yours way more."

"Shh.", Zuse uttered giggling. "Don't say that too loud or Shaddix gets hopping mad!"

"I'd be fully satisfied if we went up to your lounge, so that you can mix me one of YOUR drinks. Isn't that your target? Seeing your guests satisfied? True to the motto: The customer is king."

Zuse looked around shortly. "Hmm... I don't know. Leaving my guests alone so early..."

"Didn't you say you're not feeling like partying anyway?" She came closer to him. "I can see how tensed up you are. All those problems, Susan, CLU, badger you. In my opinion, you deserve a little break. Besides..." She whispered into his ear: "... I would love to help you to relax..."

Again, she distanced herself, looking into Zuse's eyes with her own bright ones, whose vibrant colour was even more emphasised by her deep black makeup.

He eyed her with a light grin on his lips, banishing the image of Susan, that constantly came to his mind during the conversation, from his thoughts, together with everything that had to do with CLU, fully concentrated on this svelte body in front of him.

"Alright..." Zuse held his arm out to her. "Shall we, dearest?"

Together they strolled to the stairs that Zuse let hover up with a short knock on the floor with his glass cane.

"After you."

As Gem tottered up, Zuse slightly tilted his head to the side, regarding the siren's backside with a smirk. Her white suit was so tight that every movement of her body was visible. With joy in his eyes he followed her up.

Gem took a seat on a couch on the right side of the lounge.

"Which drink would you like me to prepare for you, pretty miss?", Zuse asked, walking past her towards the small bar in the back.

"The same your bartender just fixed, but in your way."

He smirked and got down to work.

For a few moments, there was only the hard beat and the electrifying rhythms from outside the lounge to hear. Them Zuse, who was almost completely bound up in putting some bottles onto the counter, perceived the clicking noise of Gem's high heels. Slowly she strolled over to him, leaning over the counter and watching him.

"You're very good at that, know exactly which liquids you need for that drink... I find it fascinating how you use your hands in doing so. It reminds me of what we sirens learn in our education in the areas of-"

"Anatomy, ergonomics..." Zuse let a small umbrella fall into the finished drink and held it out to her. "... data-plexus."

She smiled, taking the glass with her right. "You are clued-in on us sirens."

"I am clued-in on many things."

"Then you probably know the techniques we get to learn in those subjects as well." After she'd nipped on it, she put the glass down. "Data-plexus. There are spots on a program's body, where the individual bitstreams meet and build a node. If one finds those and touches them..." The tips of her forefingers began to glow and as she let them run down her sides, her tight suit fell off of her piece by piece, until she stood there entirely naked. "... it releases an galvanic feeling of ecstasy..."

"Yes, I..." Zuse picked over his lips, eyeing her body. "... I master those techniques, indeed."

"Then it shouldn't be a problem if we wanted to relax together, right?"

He looked back into her eyes, grinning. "Absolutely no problem, beautiful."

* * *

><p>Shaddix handed a glass filled with luminous orange liquid to the programme in front of him. "Careful, too many of them cause an overload, man.", he warned the guy laughing.<p>

Like Castor had told him he moved the bottles of the bar just the way his boss wanted him to, although he knew that he wouldn't be able to admire his work this evening anymore, since he'd disappeared into his lounge with this siren.

Shaddix didn't like her, not only because he heard her bitching about his drinks earlier, but also, since he had always hoped that Zuse and Susan, the coolest, cleverest and funniest woman he's ever met, would become a couple, hence the fact that his friend occupied himself otherwise bothered him a bit.

With a towel he wiped over the counter, making it spick and span, just the way he liked it, until he noticed something from the corner of his eye. Frowning, he looked up and froze.

At the entrance there stood a black-haired programme he had seen here several times before, which definitely shouldn't show up here, though.

"Holy user poo...", the bartender whispered.

Immediately he searched for a specific button under the counter and pressed it. Even after he waited a short while no answer came. "Come on." He pressed it again. No reply.

With a shocked expression on his bearded face, he glanced over to Kyto who was just about to wander in, however, got stopped by the bouncers of the club.

"Oooooh, dammit..."

This time Shaddix pressed the button repeatedly, until finally there came a response.

"_I'm too busy right now, Shaddix!_", came Zuse's slightly wheezy sounding voice through the communicator.

"_I_t's important_-_"

* * *

><p>"- <em>really important!<em>"

Zuse made every effort to ignore the voice coming out of the communicator next to the couch he was lying on with Gem, just kept kissing her neck, holding her thighs even closer to his body that lay in between them, which made the siren moan quietly.

"_Hey, man, answer me!_"

"Can't you turn that off?", she brought out.

"One nano." He pushed himself up to reach the communicator, which he hissed into now: "Shaddix, stop it at once! I do not have time for you now!"

Then he gave of himself to Gem under him again.

"_Alright_.", it came in a casual tone. "_Then I'll tell the BLACK-HAIRED, YOUNG PROGRAM WITH THE GREEN CIRCUITRY COLOR that it can wait for you at the bar in the meantime..._"

Zuse pushed himself up at one go. "WHAT?!"

"_I told you it was important, but sir busyness didn't want to listen..._"

Shocked, he looked away, still panting. "What the heck is HE doing here?"

"What's wrong?", the siren puffed, irritated. "It hardly can be more important than THIS!"

Zuse looked down at her, then to the console. "Dammit..."


	3. Chapter 2,2

**CHAPTER 2.2**

Shaddix held his hand out in a defensive gesture, just as someone was about to order something. "Sorry, I'll take a short break. Be right back!", he said quickly, scurrying around the bar towards the club entrance. He shoved the bouncers aside, put his arm around Kyto's shoulders and turned him in the direction of the lift. "Heeey, boy!"

The surprised Kyto spoke slowly: "Have... uh... have we met before?"

"No, but now that you're here... What are you doing here, man?"

"I... well... I'm looking for a program called-"

There his arm got grabbed.

"Castor!", he said joyfully, however, Zuse just hastily pushed him into the elevator. "Hey, wha-"

"Get in there!" After he'd hauled him in, he quickly turned to the bartender. "Thank you."

"No problem. You look quite stressed by the way."

"Oh, really?", Zuse hissed with a bitter grin, getting into the lift as well where he pushed the button for Level 0.

Silence fell over the two of them behind the closed elevator doors. The music of the club was not to perceive anymore. Though, is silence didn't last long.

"What in Grid's name were you thinking?!"

"What do you mean?", Kyto asked in bewilderment. "I was bored so I wanted to visit you. And hey, you didn't tell me that your home was a club! Pure awesomeness what's going on in there!"

"Didn't I tell you to stay in your apartment until I come back?"

"Yes, but-"

"No but! It was incredibly stupid of you to not follow my instructions!"

Kyto's expression adopted angry features. "Why are you snapping at me? I just wanted to visit you! Everything's alright, you psycho!"

"Alright?" Zuse laughed out loud, whereat not a spark of joy resonated. "You do know why you got activated, don't you?"

"Sure. The original program must have been deleted, whereby I, the backup, got activated."

"Exactly. But this original programme didn't get derezzed anywhere, no, it was deleted in the arena! Everyone could witness its death live and, believe me, they craved for it! I am sorry to have to tell you that, but your predecessor was definitely not the sweetheart of the people!"

Kyto looked at him in shock. "That means... if I walked in there-"

"-it would have been more than surprising for my guests, among which there are sentries as well, who most probably would have killed you for the simple reason that you should be dead already."

"Oh... I... I didn't know that..." Sighing he leant against the glass wall of the elevator. "I'm sorry..."

"You do not have to apologise to me. Rather thank me and that rather to Shaddix. The poor guy almost got a system crash when he saw you.", Zuse said, following suit out of exhaustion.

"So I can trust him?"

With tired eyes, Zuse gave Kyto a questioning look.

"Well, I mean, if there are so many who want me to be dead I should be more careful with my contacts. I have to know who I can trust in apart from you."

"You... trust me?"

"Of course. You activated me and help me all the time."

A for Zuse uncomfortable silence spread, before Kyto raised his voice again after half an eternity. "Tell me... Why did the former Kyto get derezzed in such a public way? Isn't that unusual?"

Zuse sighed, trying to fix his slightly messy hair by the reflexion in the window of the elevator. "Well, because of Susan. Obviously, his friendship to her was his undoing..."

"His friend betrayed him?"

Abruptly Zuse turned to Kyto again. "No, of course not! Susan was... You did not read the entries in the archive about her, hm?"

Sheepishly, Kyto replied: "I only got to 'disc wars'."

"Well, then you are already informed about the main part of her activities..."

* * *

><p>Kyto sat tailor-fashion on the bed of his tiny apartment. Zuse stood next to him, leaning against the wall.<p>

Where was he supposed to begin? Just like her code, Susan's life was pretty complicated and to compress her story into a few sentences was simply impossible, so he decided to start more or less at zero. "All right. Do you know what a User is, Kyto?"

"Sure. It's in my source code. Kevin Flynn who created us all is a User and other Users from outside can change everything in the system too."

"Could.", Zuse murmured. "They could have changed everything, but never did." Louder, he continued: "Like you mentioned it, we all were written by Flynn. Susan, however... was not."

With big eyes, Kyto listened attentively.

"Susan Gifford... The name alone points out that she is different. She came here about 40 cycles after the creation of the Grid... as the copy of a User."

The black-haired programme's jaw dropped. "Really?"

Zuse laughed. 'Yes. She constructed a copy of herself, since she knew that she would die of a User-illness soon and this was her only chance to stay alive." Buried in thoughts, Zuse looked through the strips of metal out of the window, against which light rain began to drum now. "Her origin was not the only thing that made her someone special, though. She proved her uniqueness on so many occasions that one can barely compare her to other programmes anymore. After she had settled in here, Susan apprenticed to Tron."

"The city is named after a program?"

"Indeed it is. The archive contains various entries about him, since as a programme of the Grid you absolutely have to know all about him. He was the protector of the system, however, he died a long time ago."

"Tron..." Kyto seemed to imprint this name into his mind. "I'll read everything related to him."

"Marvellous. Anyway, through her education Susan became one of the best female fighters on the Grid, if not the best. She set herself to protect others, well, at least before the Purge..." He pointed at the disc-input, wherefrom one could tap into the archive. "You will read about it later, I myself prefer to not lose many words about the Purge, if it is convenient for you. Back to Susan. After the Purge she had to keep a low profile, since the word User did not evoke any positive connotations in the heads of the programmes any longer." He paused shortly, forced himself to continue then, before he had to think more about Users. "In her exile, Susan met the mechanic Kyto."

A smile spread over Kyto's face.

"The two of them became good friends, even though they haven't seen each other during the time Susan was forced to fight in the arena. A few incidents tempered their friendship, yes, but never destroyed it. However, as I mentioned already... this friendship was Kyto's undoing. Susan's identity was exposed shortly before her last arena battle, making her the target of all hatred of the programmes in Tron City. To break her iron will they sent Kyto to her in the arena, where she had to witness him getting derezzed."

"That's awful..." With a gloomy gaze, Kyto looked to the ground. "It seems this Susan had to go through a lot."

Zuse closed his eyes. "Yes, she did..."

The young programme eyed him. After a long pause, he added in a whisper: "You are friends with her, am I right?"

With his forehead, Zuse leant against the window. "She is my best friend."

"Did... did they succeed in breaking her will?"

A light smile spread over the white-haired programme's face. "No." He lifted his lids. "She continued fighting. And although it is unwise... she will never stop fighting. But this is what makes her so special." Zuse turned to Kyto. "Susan Gifford will never give up."

"Where is she now?"

"Out of danger. She is in a place, where I hope that nothing bad will happen to her anymore."

Kyto nodded, looking onto the blanket he sat on.

Zuse eyed him for a moment. It was odd for him to talk with a programme about a woman his counterpart should know in and out. Equally odd was the fact that this young boy here in front of him thought they would be friends, however, Zuse could never be friends with Kyto, he knew that, not after all they flung in each other's teeth recently, and not after he had been the reason Zuse wasn't able to spend as much time with Susan he would have liked to. Lately, she had given of herself to the 'Resistance', which was nothing but history by now, and her friend Kyto that Zuse had felt lonely many a time. So many superficial friendships he had made in his time on the Grid, though, he had never felt as connected to anybody as to Susan. And this was the reason he and Kyto couldn't be friends. As soon as he got his memory store back, he would realise that as well.

Still... Looking into these naïve eyes of the young Kyto now, soothed him a bit. It gave him a feeling of familarity he clung to now that everything had changed in the last millicycles.

"Well then...", Zuse eventually said. "I should go now. There is still a lot to be done in my club and, moreover, I extensively have to apologise to a lady I left alone so abruptly."

"Sorry again..." Kyto gave Zuse a light smile.

"Oh, it's alright. Just don't do it again. Outside business hours, you are welcome, of course, however, if you are about to visit me you will have to inform me first, so that I can pick you up with my light roadster, because if you head off to the EOLC alone, you increase the chances to get recognised immensely. Okay?"

"Okay!"

"Good. See you, sunshine."

Kyto watched Zuse walking out of his apartment and closing the door behind him, leaving him alone to his thoughts.

A few moments he just stayed on his bed, looking into nothing, before he stood up, took his disc from his back and put it into the input on the wall, where he downloaded a few particular files. Then he lay down on his stomach and opened the content of his disc.

Long into the night he studied the entries and pictures that showed the face of Susan Gifford.


	4. Chapter 3,1

_**Author's Note: Heya ^^ so here's the first part of chap 3 (the second part will follow in a nano like always :) ) This time there will be an action scene and a bit of cuteness. Hope you'll like it as well as I do ^^**_

_**ENJOY, my lovely programmes, and PLEASE REVIEW (I could need a little motivation boost :P)**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 3.1<strong>

Zuse parked his light roadster and got out. Instinctively, he activated the anti-theft system he'd installed. In case anyone tried to open the car door now that he was gone, the programme would be seized by an energy shock, which overloaded their circuits outright, knocking it unconscious. In the lower levels one couldn't be careful enough.

Quickly he strode into the building, in front of which he had parked, and got into the narrow elevator that was, just like nearly everything around, plated with metal. Tough, before the doors could close, a tall, stout man edged himself in, coming to a stand next to Zuse, who, as he smelled the stench of this programme, turned his head way, strongly hoping that the trip up would take long.

"From n'upper level, huh?", the man asked.

Zuse forced a smile onto his lips. "Mhm."

The guy pulled a face. "I see."

Again, Zuse turned his head away, looked into all directions, but at the man next to him.

"You look rich."

He raised his brows a bit, still not deigning to look at the guy.

There he got grabbed by his arm. "Gimme your identity card at once, or I'll beat the living daylights outa you, you snob!"

Zuse laughed quietly, slightly lifting his cane and shot into the man's foot with it, whereupon he let out a shriek and let up on him. The elevator doors opened and Zuse strolled into the corridor of the storey he had headed to.

"Adieu!", he called backwards to the still screaming programme in a gleeful tone.

On both sides of the long corridor several identical metallic doors lined up. Next to the third of the left-hand side he touched the wall, it lit up and a small field with numbers was projected. Zuse typed in the right code and pushed the door open.

"Hey, Castor.", it came from the on his bed sitting Kyto.

"Hey, Ky-" Zuse froze.

In the whole room, which already was extremely small, pictures gleamed on the walls, pictures, which Zuse knew only too well, but never thought to seeing them anytime soon. On the left side there were several that showed Susan Gifford's face, some laughing, some with utterly neutral expression. On the right was one, on which she was just goring two sentries with their own light swords, and next to that a huge one, showing her standing with her legs apart and her disc in her hand, letting her fist fly into the air. A heroic pose for the spectators.

"What is that?", Zuse asked slowly and with a slight hiss in his voice.

"Looks great, doesn't it?" Kyto beamed with joy. "After you told me so much about her, I read all the entries in the archive about her and, WOW, this Susan is so cool! Like a real hero! These arena battles were totally awesome! She-"

"Did you get programmed dumb, or are you just playing that way?!", Zuse interrupted him harshly.

Offended, Kyto furrowed his brows. "Hey... Why are you so mean?"

Zuse went to each picture on the left quickly and let the side of his underarm glide over them, whereupon the projections disappeared. "If anybody sees that and tells the sentries about it, they arrest you! You could get derezzed, are you aware of that?!" He marched to the other side of the room, doing the same. "Then all my work was for nothing, just because you are so gullible and think that noone would betray you. Oh well, believe me, here on the Grid many programmes already got betrayed by someone, who they would have never expected to do such a thing!"

Kyto looked down to the blanket he was sitting on. "Is it still about me or about the fact that suddenly everyone turned against Susan?"

Zuse paused in the movement. Whilst talking he hadn't noticed that he really thought of something different. However, not only of what Kyto meant. It was true, it enraged him immensely that the programmes of the Grid were so susceptible to manipulations, letting their former heroine fall so quickly. Though, the topic betrayal infuriated him even more, when he thought about the Purge or about... himself. He didn't want to help CLU, the man he hated like poison, however, he would do it soon anyway. He would betray programmes with the same beliefs like Susan, would turn them in, just to save his own hide.

He pressed his lids together.

No, he would never support CLU that way. He would only give him a few informations about the loyality of his subjects or where one could find this or that, not more. Noone would get hurt because of him. He swore that to himself.

"Kyto.", he said with a calmer voice, turning around. "The incident with Susan showed how naïve most programmes can be. They think what CLU wants them to think and therefore see Susan as a threat. Keep admiring her, if you want to, but please do not show it openly."

Before Zuse could let the last image, the one whereon Susan derezzed the two sentries apparently without effort, disappear, Kyto said: "Wait!"

Zuse gave him a surprised look. The black-haired looked at the picture, smiling. "She's cool, right?"

Zuse laughed. "Really cool!" Then he brought this image down with a wiping movement of his forearm as well. He paused, as thought came to his mind. "Do you happen to have a perfume here?"

"Why do you need one?" Kyto stood up, positioning next to Zuse, and took in a deep breath through his nose. "You smell very sweet in my opinion."

The white-haired programme backed off a bit, looking at his counterpart with narrow eyes. "Did you just sniff at me?"

"Yeah. Well?"

"How. Weird... Well, anyway, let's go on our trip."

"On the way we could talk about Susan's arena fights. They were so great!"

While the both of them stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind them, Zuse said: "Yes, her combat style was unbelievable, indeed, but to be honest I really paid no heed to something like that when she had to fight in the arena. I just hoped she would get out uninjured."

As they entered the lift, Kyto raised his brows at the sight of the crying programme squatting on the floor and embracing its derezzing foot. He looked up, realising who wanted to get in, winced and hastily crawled away.

Kyto folded his arms, giving Zuse a faked stern look. "Castooor?"

Zuse just shrugged. "He started it."

When they arrived downstairs, Kyto shortly marvelled at the many unconscious programmes lying around Zuse's light roadster, though, just stepped over them and got into the car.

"This Tron had to be amazing too, if he taught her all of that."

Zuse sighed. "Yes, he had always been the best in all competitions, even in driving... whereat I have always come second place. But sht! I do not want anyone to know that it has been me..."

Kyto smiled at him. "Yeah, I already noticed that you're a good driver, but second place at the games... Wow, I wish I was able to achieve something like that."

"Well, Susan told me that your predecessor has been... a reasonable driver as well. Besides, as I catch, there are many mechanic programmes who have a way with driving. Perhaps, it is, like the Users would put it, in your blood."

"So you think I could make it?", Kyto asked joyfully.

Zuse shrugged. "You can reach every goal in your life if you just really want it and work for it hard enough."

"Did you have to train a lot to become such a good driver?"

He laughed. "No, I was a natural talent, of course!"

There the communicator in the roadster flashed up. Zuse frowned, took his disc from his back whilst driving and put it into the input next to it. As he synchronised it with himself again, he braked instantly.

Kyto who had fallen a bit forward at the abrupt action, asked in an alarmed tone: "What's happened?"

Zuse looked straightforward.

He had just received his first assignment from CLU who was searching for a programme in a special sector of the upper level which had obviously disregarded reprimands concerning the soiling of Tron City walls and therefore had to serve a sentence. Zuse should find this programme and inform CLU about its whereabouts.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the worried sounding "Castor?" from Kyto next to him.

This should be his first mission? Squealing on a programme for defacing a wall? It was so absurd that such a mundane action would lead to his betrayal. Because of him this programme would get arrested...

On the other hand, imprisonment wasn't that bad. The programme would get jailed for a few millicycles, maybe it would get a bit tired due to lack of energy, but that was it. CLU couldn't let his sentries hurt a prisoner for such a trivial reason. This would do the rounds way too quickly, making him look ferocious.

Zuse took a deep breath. "I... I have to get something of importance done before the opening of the club..."

Kyto sighed, deeply leaning into the passanger seat with a sulky expression on his face and crossed arms. "That means we can forget our little joyride through the city... Great..."

There Zuse put his foot down again, directing the roadster into to next street on the left.

Kyto gave him a puzzled look. "Uh... my appartment is in the other direction."

"Bringing you back before going where I have to finish this off would take far too much time. I have to get this done NOW. Ergo, I will take you with me."

The young programme began to shine with excitement. "Cool! Let's hurl ourselves into our first adventure!"

Zuse just stared straightforward without having the slightest of smiles on his stern face. "How I wish it was true..."

* * *

><p>Zuse parked the car behind some others in front of a tall building, wherefrom a hard beat resounded quietly.<p>

"Okay, what exactly are we doing here?", Kyto asked with excitement in his voice, just as he wanted to get out.

Though, Zuse grabbed his shoulder. "I will walk in there, attend to why I came here, while YOU stay right here in the roadster. We do not want anyone to recognise you, remember?"

"But-!", Kyto began, let out a deep sigh then and murmured: "Okay... How long will you be in there?"

"I don't know yet. At the very most half a millicycle."

"HALF A MILLICYCLE?! So you want me to spend a fucking half-millicycle in here, doing NOTHING?!"

Zuse thought for a moment, before an idea hit him. "Give me your disc."

Kyto watched how his counterpart positioned his own white disc over his green glowing one, whereupon on both sides their data codes got displayed, which Zuse now tipped around in. Then he parted the two discs again.

"Here you are. I loaded a quite amusing game onto your disc. You will like it. I got it from Susan."

"Uh-huh." Kyto still sounded annoyed. "So that means you really leave me here for half a millicycle, right?"

Zuse looked into the air for a moment, then turned to Kyto again with a wide smile on his face: "Yes!" and got out of the car.

The black-haired programme watched him disappearing into the building. He snarled, hardly pressing himself into the seat once more. A few moments, he just remained in this position, before slowly taking the disc from his back and opened the game Castor had loaded on it.

Kyto couldn't believe its simplicity. The music of the game sounded extremely old and a bit threatening, as if the melody idly forced its way to his ears, but funny at the same time. Its name was TETRIS and apparently he had to place some blocks ontop of each other, forming rows, before disappearing once again.

Did his idol Susan really play something like that?

He sighed and gave the game a shot. Otherwise, he would just stare holes into the air anyway.


	5. Chapter 3,2

_**Author's Note: I really would like to hear about your opinion on this story, no matter if it's negative or positive feedback, or just some thoughts about it, the characters or whatever. I like to talk about what I write since it's my passion and let's be honest ISN'T THE TRONIVERSE AAAAMAZIIIING?! ^_^**_

_**ENJOY and REVIEW!**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 3.2<strong>

As Zuse entered the huge hall, in which hundreds of programmes - he knew the names of each and every one of them - were romping about, he immediately got greeted by enormously loud music, which didn't bother him as a club owner. He wound through the dancing masses, keeping an eye out for a specific programme, when somebody got hold of his arm suddenly.

"Castor!", the young woman shouted joyfully over the music. Some other programmes turned to them, smiled or even waved at him. The woman engulfed him into a hug. "Good to see you, you pretty boy!"

With a wide smile, Zuse gently broke away from her, while his hands slid down to her hips. "Good to see you too, my beautiful Gaile."

"Oh, so this is why you're here, gotcha..." She smirked, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately.

Zuse enjoyed it for a while, then lightly pushed her away. "To be honest this is not the reason for my visit. I am searching for Paccol. Did you see him?"

Gaile's luminous green eyes wandered up into the air. "Hm... Ah! Yes, he was at the blue-bar earlier. He's probably still there, since he ordered a whole bottle when I saw him the last time... Or two... I dunno."

Zuse laughed, which was followed with a deep sigh. "I am sorry to have to leave you so quickly."

She shrugged. "I just have a date anyway."

"And then you have fun with ME? Naughty girl..." Again he pressed his lips onto hers and wound through the crowd.

Already at approaching the blue-bar, one of the 3 different bars in the hall, he spotted the programme with shoulder-length dark hair and stubbly beard, sitting on a stool with a bottle in his hand.

"Well, Pac? Don't you mix with the other guests? I know how much you love it to pick a fight.", he said grinning, leaning against the bar next to the man he had been looking for.

Paccol winced, looking at Zuse with a hazy gaze, began to laugh and spread his arms. "Caaaas! What is my deaaryearyearest programy doin' heeere?" He wanted to tweak Zuse's cheek, but he hit his hand away with a disgusted expression on his face.

"You have an overload. Don't you dare to touch me, is that understood?"

"Aw, but I wawawant to touch you sooo badly...", he laughed, moving his finger down Zuse's chest, which the white-haired also swept away with a slap.

"Didn't you assure me once that you are into women solely?"

"Oh, thought you'd be one." Zuse glared at him, which made his counterpart laugh. "Buuuut you're right!" He turned into the other direction, where two women were just about to order some drinks. "Hey, you sweeties, how about I pick up your bill and you suck my-"

In an instant, Zuse stood between them. "Please excuse his vulgar utterances, ladies, he means no harm!" Then he turned to Paccol. "Are you crazy?! Do you want to get lammed again?"

"Hey, this bitch from last time sneaked up on me!"

"Rubbish, Rox defeated you in an open combat, and rightly so, you fumbling bastard. But now to the matter wherefore I came here to talk to you. I need to find a programme which-"

"How much do I get?"

"Pardon?"

"Every information has its price, Cas, you know that."

Zuse raised an eyebrow. "First I want to see if you are actually able to help me. I am searching for a programme that soiled walls in this sector of the uppermost level and should get arrested for that reason now..." While talking he got more and more quiet until he fell silent completely. Then he grabbed Paccol's head, pulling him closer to himself.

"Hey, dude, I'm not so drunk as to romp with you!"

Zuse ignored his statement, deeply looking into the programme's eyes, whose pupils had an orange edge. He shoved him away again. "You've had more than just drinks, am I right?"

As Paccol's response only consisted of a smutty grin, Zuse let out an annoyed hiss. From a strung-out junkie he wouldn't get any useful information. What a nuisance. He had really expected that Paccol, who knew almost every dirty secret about the programmes from the upper levels, would be able to help him, though, he'd just wasted his time.

"Bye, Pac."

Zuse wanted to walk towards the exit, but Paccol's voice held him back: "You look for ChiMal, the little hussy from this light cycle cleaning agency. It could also be this secretary-guy. What kind of 'soiling' is this about?"

"Are you sure those are not just pipe dreams evoked by your current... condition?"

Paccol smiled. "I've had much more in the past and could still recall everything I every heard about and this is a lot, as you know. I demand payment, though. My next order is on you."

Zuse thought for a moment, before leaning to him once again. "Alright."

"Bartender! Another bottle and Packete,", Paccol shouted.

Zuse sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Oh, that just can't be true..."

* * *

><p>"C'mon, where's this silly stick?"<p>

Kyto had made himself comfortable over the two seats of the car, leaning against one of the doors with his disc on his stomach, so that he could shift the luminous projections of the little blocks with both hands. Suddenly, they were gone and only two words rotated in front of his face:

GAME OVER

"Dammit! Not again!" Kyto sighed, paused for a moment and started a new game.

There someone knocked against the pane above him which made him wince. He looked up, directly into the face of an ugly grinning man.

"Hey, boy! Fancy roadster!"

"Uh..." Kyto shortly considered if Castor would have any objections against him talking to strange programmes who obviously didn't recognise him and, eventually, decided against it. "Thanks."

"How fast can it go?"

"Uhm... Very fast?"

"'Nuff for me." All of a sudden the man tore the door Kyto leant on open, whereby the black-haired fell backwards onto the pavement that consisted of hexagons.

"Hey, what the heck?!" The man kicked Kyto away from the car, got in and hit the road laughing.

With his mouth agape the young programme gazed after him. "Oooooh, nonononoNO!" Quickly, he looked around and spotted a programme sitting on a light cycle whilst saying goodbye to its friends. He ran up to it, shoved it off the bike and swung his own leg over it. "I'm sorry! I'll bring it back in a nano, promise!", he called over his shoulder towards the shocked looking programmes, as he stepped on the gas.

At first it felt quite uncommon and the light cycle faltered a little, but slowly got the hang of it. Finally, he spotted Zuse's light roadster ahead and accelerated. He dodged the other vehicles on the lane lightning-fast, brushing a few, and felt the fear of falling off the bike and derezzing, arise within his chest, though, he just swallowed it, fixated his eyes onto the roadster with the white circuitry colour. As he made it to drive right beside it, he opened up once more, let the light cycle disappear in its baton and jumped onto the top of the driving car. From inside he heard the man cursing, before he began to swerve about, trying to throw the young programme of, which he almost managed to do. Kyto's eyes widened as he felt how he slowly skidded off to the right side. He reached for his disc and let it plummet into the car roof, in order to hitch himself. Suddenly, the man bore from the inside through the roof with his own disc, missing Kyto only by a few centimetres. Kyto startled and rolled to the other side to avoid the next try to hit him. Again and again he changed his position, holding fast onto his disc, lifted his legs lying on the back, rolled to the side once more and came into a crouching position. He wondered why the disc of the man didn't come out of the roof any longer, before he heard him laugh. As Kyto looked up, his eyes widened and he took a deep breath.

Further afar was a tunnel.

Rapidly, he drew his disc out of the car top, caught hold of its edge and swung himself up, so that he could break the window at the passenger seat with his feet, fall into the roadster and, thereby, give the man at the wheel a kick, making it knock against the door on the left. It opened and grinded against the wall of the tunnel, which they just arrived at, emitting sparks. The man raised his disc, Kyto dodged his stroke quickly and tried to hit him himself, however, the programme dealt a blow with its elbow to his chest, which didn't keep him from attacking. Again and again he tried to reach the man with his disc, though, even if he only had one free hand to fight back, since he had to hold the steering wheel with the other, the black-haired was far too inexperienced as to score a hit. He tried it from all sides, from above, from below, directly from the front, but eventually his opponent managed to graze Kyto's arm, making him scream out, before he pressed his hand onto the face of the man, so that he couldn't see anything when they passed the tunnel.

There an other vehicle rammed the roadster from the side and it went into a skid, letting Kyto slide backwards and fall out of the passenger door, where he barely got hold of an open spot of the car, while the man inside gained the control again and rushed straigt ahead.

Kyto's legs got scraped at the contact with the ground, as he desperately attempted to get in the roadster again, but the headwind kept him from doing so. A light runner approached him, making him raise his brows in fear, though, shortly before it reached him, he managed to press himself against the side of the car, so that he saw the runner dash past him just a hand's breadth away from his face, sweeping the open passenger door away.

Kyto's legs dangled down again, but there he realised the street getting narrower due to a vast building on the right. Just as they were about to pass it, Kyto managed to push off the ground, landed on the building's wall and, before he could get dashed backwards, he jumped off it and directly into the car, so that his own weight crashed into the man, making him fall out of the roadster with a last outcry.

Kyto laughed out loud, though, as he turned his eyes on the street again, he hushed. The lane in front of him took a sharp turn left and straight ahead there were only huge tours, which he would run into by the high speed of the roadster with certainty. Instantly, he slammed on the brakes, tearing the wheel to the left. He drifted across the street and came to a stand just millimetres from the barrier of the lane.

For a while, he just sat there with widened eyes, breathing heavily. Then he began to laugh.

"Oh Kyto, you are the best!", he told himself, before driving back.

* * *

><p>With a triumphant smile Zuse left the tall building.<p>

He'd already conveyed the information Paccol had gave him and despite his initial aversion against this activity, he was a little proud of himself now. Not many programmes could pride themselves on having such good and above all so many contacts like he had.

Buoyantly, he strolled down the street... and stopped dead in his tracks.

His light roadster wasn't where he left it.

Zuse looked around.

His light roadster was nowhere to be seen.

There he spotted a small group of arguing programmes. "Excuse me!" He came over to them. "Did you happen to see a light roadster with white circuitry colour somewhere around here? It's the newest model, quite eye-catching."

"No!", one of the female programmes snapped at him.

Another one gave her an angry look, before sadly smiling at Zuse. "Sorry. My friend is a bit mad, because her light cycle got stolen." She paused, looking over Zuse's shoulder. "Uh... Isn't that your roadster?"

The white-haired turned around and his jaw dropped.

The passanger door of his former beautiful car was missing, the roof was cluttered with holes and its sides were covered in scrapes and sander marks.

As the light roadster came to a stand, Kyto got out. Immediately, he hurried to the girl he had stolen the bike from and handed the baton to her, who gave him a dumbfounded look. Then he turned to Zuse, who could only stare at his damaged property.

"Newest model, huh? Well, it is eye-catching, indeed!", one programme of the group laughed.

Kyto punished him with a glare, which didn't help in the slightest, before stuttering: "I-I-I can expl-"

Marching over to the formerly splendid roadster, Zuse hissed: "Get. In." and those were the last words he addressed to him during this daycycle.

* * *

><p>"C'mon on..."<p>

Kyto tried to pull out the last orange part of the luminous white framework, though, he got caught on something.

When Castor silently brought him home yesterday, he hadn't had the courage to tell him what a brave deep he had done. In his apartment he had watched the memory sequence of the pursuit on his disc several times, constantly having a wide grin on his face. He had moved the light cycle instinctively, catching up on the thief insanely fast. Granted, his fear of dying thereby had been huge, but, obviously, Castor had been right: It was in his non-existent blood.

He was proud of his performance, however, he certainly did not want Castor to be mad at him, which was the reason why he had taken the light rail to the topmost level immediately after his sleeping cycle and searched for the Castor's light roadster. It had taken a while, but eventually he found it in a narrow alley, covered with a tarpaulin, so that nobody could see how battered it was. He had opened its codes and buckled down to work at once, trying to repair the car, since that, Kyto knew exactly, was something he was capable of without much training. He was written as a mechanic and this would be his first Job as such.

Again he gave the damaged part a tug and finally made it to pull it out. "Haha! Gotcha!"

There he suddenly perceived the hissing noise of the opening doors of the elevator at the bottom of the tower near at hand. He peeked around the corner of the alley, whereupon a smile spread all over his face.

After a long night in the club, Zuse eventually wanted to repair his roadster, which Kyto had made a total mess of. As he raised his eyes, he stopped. The black-haired rolled the car out of the alley, flinging his arms up in the air. "TA-DAAA!"

When Zuse didn't showed the scrap of a reaction, Kyto let his arms sink again. Did he forget anything? Once more he inspected the roadster, decided that it did look amazing and turned around again.

"I repaired it for you. Took a while, but ey, now it looks just as fabulous as it did before!" He sighed, running his fingers through the dark hair. "I am sorry. But there was this guy who wanted to steal your light roadster, so I followed him with this girl's bike and... and... Oh, you should've seen it! I was so cool! I fought against this dude and then there was a tunnel and then we got rammed and then I was-!"

Zuse lifted his hand to make the young programme hush. After a few moments of silence, he said: "You have no idea why I was mad, don't you?"

Kyto thought for a second. "Well, because... I made your car look like shit?"

Zuse sighed. "Kyto... I can buy a new light roadster any time. Yes, I even have enough resources to get multiple of such! But there is no back-up of you, back-up. You placed yourself in great danger, you could have gotten derezzed and for what? For an exciting adventure? If something happened to you in the course of this, my whole work would have been for nothing!"

Kyto looked at him with big eyes, before fixing his embarrassed gaze to the ground.

Castor was right. Kyto could have easily died during the pursuit, indeed. Why had he been so stupid? "I am sorry, Castor... I didn't want to disappoint you again... I... I..." There his eyes filled with tears and he began to sob.

Slowly Zuse came over to Kyto. He remained motionless for a few moments and then slapped Kyto's face.

Shocked, he looked at him.

"Stop crying. This is no reason for crying. You are far too young to know what really makes one want to cry, but let me tell you such a matter is not.", he said in completely neutral tone.

Kyto snivelled once more, held his breath then and looked up to keep his tears from falling.

"Good. And now let us forget this incident. You are alright, aren't you?"

Kyto nodded. Then he remembered the cut on his arm he had covered it with a black cloth, in order to not have to see it again, and pulled the almost not noticable fabric down. "The guy who wanted to steal your roadster caught me with his disc. I don't know how to get rid of that..."

Zuse took Kyto's arm, eyeing the wound. Nothing serious, but apparently it had already gotten infected with tiny scuttling bugs. "Hm... You should have shown it to me earlier. It seems the bugs have already enlarged the injury a little bit..."

"The WHAT?!" Kyto broke away from Zuse, looking at his arm with horror in his eyes. "I HAVE BUGS IN MY ARM?!"

Zuse raised an eyebrow. "Now don't make such a fuss. As long as they didn't attack your entire system, everything is fine. Sit down on the bonnet, I remove them and close the wound."

Kyto did as he was told, watching apprehensively how Zuse took something that looked like a small needle out of his sleeve, taking Kyto's arm and getting very close to it to see every single bug. Then the tip of the needle began to glow and he lead it to the wound.

Kyto withdrew his arm. "W-what are you doing?!"

Zuse sighed. "I am killing off the bugs. Only after doing that I can close the cut. And now would you kindly stopp behaving like a pussycat? Where did your coooolness of yesterday go?"

Again, Kyto gave him his arm. Everytime Zuse drove the needle into the injury, he winced, although it didn't hurt at all. "You are doing that very well. I thought it would hurt as hell..."

Without glancing up and interrupting his work, Zuse spoke: "Well, it would at most of these so-called 'healers'. You need a lot of sensitivity and patience for something like that and fortunately I own both of these wonderful characteristics."

"Do I have to be patient too, if I want to learn how to drive as well as you do?"

"Absolutely."

"And if I was very patient and make great efforts... Would you teach me?"

Zuse laughed. "Didn't you ride a light cycle quite well yesterday?"

"Yes, but... Surely not as well as you could..."

Zuse smiled. It flattered him that someone who hadn't even see him showing off his driving skills was so impressed by him.

"How about that: I will teach you in driving..."

"YAY!", Kyto cheered happily.

"... but only if you follow all my instructions from now on and don't put yourself into any kind of danger again. That means no fights, no boldness and you only leave your apartment if I am with you. Not like now that you foolishly came here alone yet again. Soooo..." Zuse closed the cut with a few movements, stroked over it then and kissed it shortly. He frowned. "Pardon me. Force of habit. Susan always wanted me to do that after I freed her from her injuries of the arena combats. She thought one would feel much better then..."

Kyto smiled at Zuse. "She's right. And yes, okay, deal!" He held his Hand out to the white-haired programme. "I will behave from now on and you teach me how to drive correctly!"

Smirking, Zuse shook on it. "Deal. And now, let's catch up on our joyride from yesterday, shall we?"

* * *

><p>With a deep sigh ChiMal locked the door to her apartment.<p>

Once again she had had a bad day. Constantly, somebody had disturbed her at work or brought some extremely dirty light cycles, though, she was used to it already. Since CLU had taken over the Grid, there were bad days exclusively. The fact that she lived in the uppermost level of Tron City didn't mean that she got treated better by the sentries than the programmes from the lower ones, since she was no more than a cleaning programme.

And this exactly was the reason she was doing it for so many daycycles already. Everytime she left the apartment for about a quarter of a millicycle to affix Arris', or Susan's, which apparently was her real name, circuitry sign onto the walls of the city, since she had been a symbol. ChiMal didn't know if she was alive, but even if she was dead, that didn't change anything. This Susan had shown the whole Grid that a programme from the lower levels could become a star as well and that what CLU tried to force down the people's throats - being written for only one purpose, which a programme has to fulfil in any case, in order to bring the system its maximum potential - was wrong. Furthermore, this woman had fought against him, rebelled against him.

This Susan had changed everything. And ChiMal wanted to draw attention to that fact.

She went down the stairs of the hallway, pushed the entrance door open and froze.

In front of her stood 4 programmes, 2 sentries in the back, next to them a man with an ugly grin on his thin lips and at the front... Rinzler, who everyone knew now after the last games.

"Program ChiMal?", the man with the disgusting face asked.

She didn't answer, just stared at the 4 of them flabbergasted.

"I'll take that as a 'Yes'."

In an instant, Rinzler dealt a perfect hock kick to her head, making her fly to the ground.

Everything was spinning. Groaning, ChiMal tried to get up, however, her arms gave way, before they got grabbed by the two sentries, who brought her on her knees.

"Program ChiMal. With your activities you gave utterance to your appreciation of an enemy of the Gird. You will be taken to the central office."

"I... I get arrested because of some graffiti?", she brought out, croaking.

"Oh, no, of course not." He bent down to her, grinning widely. "You will become part of the liberator's 'Initiative'."


	6. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note: Update time again :) So in here there is a cute bromance moment, as well as HATRED, since a special programme called CLU makes its appearance *dumdumDUUUUM***_

_**ENJOY and REVIEW, my dear programmes!**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 4<strong>

"Yes, very good, keep it up. And nooow... Brake and turn left into the parking space!"

Kyto floored the brake pedal, yanking the wheel to the left as hard as he could. The roadster skidded over the pavement, threatening to crash into two light runners standing on each side of the gap. Lightning-fast Zuse clutched at the wheel from the passenger seat and skillfully moved it from one side to the other, so that the car didn't ram the others, coming to a stand right in between them.

Panting, Kyto looked straightforward.

After a few moments of silence, Zuse cleared his throat, stroked his white hair to put the hairdo into perfect place, and said cheerfully: "Well done!"

Kyto raised one brow. "Well done? I was about to run into those runners! I can count myself lucky that you sit next to me, otherwise I would be derezzing in a wall already..."

"That is not true. You turned in an excellent drive today and believe me, my dear, if I laud you, it means you're good, since it is extremely difficult to impress Castor. YOU..." Zuse pointed at the black-haired programme, smiling widely. "... YOU, Kyto, managed to drive this whole route, which is absolutely not for anybody, in record time within half a cycle only. And this nearly without any mistakes! To be honest, I needed more time than you to master this route."

Kyto beamed, literally. "Does that mean... I am better than YOU?"

Zuse laughed buoyantly. "For Grid's sake, NO! There is still a lot you have to learn."

"But you said you needed more time for-"

"That's just because I had to teach myself all the things I teach you now. Besides, it's way more difficult to follow this route with a light cycle, than with this safe box here."

Kyto smirked at him. "Aaaand when will you let me ride a light cycle?"

His counterpart shook his head, grinning. "You just can't be patient, can you?"

"Noooo!", was Kyto's squeaking answer.

"Boy, you didn't even finish building your light cycle!"

"But soon! I sometimes have to begin all over again, since the design doesn't completely appeal to me anymore..."

"You want to create something special, am I right?"

Kyto nodded. "Exactly. Just like Susan's light cycle! On the pictures it always looked so great, with those jags on its back cover."

Zuse leant his elbow against the pane next to him, supporting his head while looking at the young programme.

Since the incident half a cycle ago, when he had found images of Susan in Kyto's apartment, his attitude towards her hadn't changed a bit. He still adored her, however, he had learnt to keep that a secret, just like his own identity. As agreed, Kyto hadn't left his apartment ever since, unless Zuse or sometimes Shaddix, since the white-haired didn't have enough time to always do it himself, picked him up, and in return Zuse taught him driving. At first the atmosphere between the two had been a bit tense, since Zuse had let Kyto drive extremely slow and strictly to the letter, on the grounds that he should internalise the basic rules first, even after his little adventure with the roadster thief. But gradually Kyto understood the importance of patience and attention in traffic, although he was spoiling for speeding through the streets on a light cycle, which Zuse could empathise with. He himself had loved it to worm his way through the long rows of vehicles on the lanes of Tron City at top speed, making the most impossible manoeuvres possible. Though, he knew all too well that this was incredibly dangerous and Kyto was not ready for something like that yet.

Still, he admired his ambition.

"It is good that you want to make your light cycle perfectly fitting to you.", Zuse said after a short pause. "If you feel connected to your bike, you will treat it more carefully and learn to keep yourself under control during driving, to not try anything, which you don't know 100% that you can do it. A programme and its light cycle should form a unified whole. THIS is the secret."

"Did you win all those competitions with one bike only?"

"I did. And we have gone through a lot more. For instance, it safely brought me and Susan through the Purge."

"I never saw you with it. Where is it?"

Zuse sighed and looked out of the windscreen in front of him. "It caught too much attention after the Purge. Therefore, I sent it to Argon, into safety..."

Kyto frowned. "Does that mean... you didn't ride one for almost 150 cycles?"

"Don't worry, Kyto honey," He smirked at him. "I've still got it and I will make you a wonderful light cycle driver. Though, all in its proper time. Now..." He rummaged around in the glove box. "... I want to show you something."

"Wait, before that I want to discuss something of importance with you."

Zuse paused, giving him a look of surprise and put his hand into his lap again.

"So...", Kyto began. "I made you the promise to not leave my apartment, since I could get recognised." Zuse looked shocked, opening his mouth to say something, but Kyto interrupted him: "No, I didn't break my promise, don't worry." Zuse let his tensed posture fall again. "I just thought... What if I changed my appearance? Then noone would be able to recognise me anymore and I could run free! So what do you think of that? Isn't it great?!"

While the black-haired programme smiled at him widely, Zuse reflected about his idea. Then he spoke: "I don't believe it is a good idea."

Kyto's smile fell. "Why not?" Before Zuse could give an answer, Kyto just kept talking: "I simply don't want to hide anymore! I want to explore the city, maybe even work as a real mechanic and I want to be in your club during its opening hours to finally find other friends apart from you. Don't get me wrong, I like Shaddix, but I don't see him often enough to be able to call him 'friend'. But that could change, if I just left my damn hole of an apartment!"

Zuse sighed, slightly irritated. "Kyto, you and I are not-"

"Friends? I know, thank you, you constantly made that clear since you activated me. What I don't understand is: why? Dammit, why can't we be friends?!"

"Due to THIS!" Zuse took the small round plate he wanted to hand Kyto earlier out of the glove box. "Your old self was jealous of me, wherefore it treated me like dirt. And, of course, I did not put up with that and didn't play an angel for him, either. And HE was the one, who didn't do ANYTHING, when they took Susan with them! You want to know why we can't be friends? Here, synchronise it and you will remember!"

Kyto looked at the plate in Zuse's hand. "This... is my memory store? The one I wasn't ready for, since my system had to adjust to the environment first?"

Zuse nodded. "I observed you lately and it seems you are ready for it now." He held it a bit higher. "Here, synchronise it, then all your questions will be answered."

Kyto stared down at his store. After half an eternity, he asked: "If I... If I synchronised it... I would become the old Kyto again?"

Once more, his counterpart nodded.

It took another while until Kyto took in a deep breath, looking into Zuse's eyes and gently pushing the hand with his memory in it away from himself. "No, thanks.", he said calmly.

With furrowed brows Zuse looked at him in surprise. "Kyto, this-"

"No, Castor." His voice adopted a smooth tone. "I don't want it. If I inserted the memory store, I become my old self. But I want to be ME, not someone else. I want my own identity, my own life and..." He smiled. "... my own friends. I am sorry that you and the old Kyto didn't get along well, but as much as he seemed to have hated you..." The young programme put his hand onto Zuse's shoulder. "... I do like you. And I really wish we could be friends, but you..." He paused, looking straight ahead and sighing sadly. "You detest me for things I didn't do. It was the old Kyto. I look exactly like him, have the same code, yes, but... I'm still an other program. I am ME. And I want to stay ME forever."

Zuse looked down to the plate in his hand.

Kyto's words confused him. Everytime he had picked him up from his apartment, everytime he took in his appearance, he had to think of how this mouth of his had gave voice to what hurt him so deeply. That those hands of his hadn't done anything, when CLU had sent for Susan. That this programme was anathema for him. However, that wasn't quite true. This programme next to him was not the one who had done those things. It was a different one, a new one, a very kind and nice programme.

He looked up, smiling lightly. "I like you too, Kyto." The black-haired beamed at him. "And you are absolutely right. I must not blame you. You are a completely different Kyto than the one I got to know cycles before you." He put the plate into the glove box again.

"What will you do with it?"

"I will deactivate the memory store at home, before disposing of it definitely. Then..." He looked into Kyto's green eyes. "... it's time to collect new memories."

"Of our friendship?" Kyto looked up at him, as if he was afraid of his reaction.

Though, a wide smile spread on Zuse's face. "Exactly, my friend." Then he opened the passenger door next to him. "And now, let us change seats. I'll show you, how to finish this route CORRECTLY!"

* * *

><p>All tensed up he walked down the corridor. Every bit in Zuse's body strove against meeting this man now, the one he owe so much bad, for whom his hatred was immeasurably big, but it had to be. Soon after he had dropped Kyto off, he had received another message to his light roadster. He ought to come into the central office to talk to CLU. The last time he'd seen him, he had threatened him to destroy everything he loved, in case he didn't become his spy, but he did, he did become the spy of the most dangerous man of the Grid. CLU had won and he would definitely let him feel it now. Zuse knew it would be extremely difficult to keep his temper, but it was necessary.<p>

As he reached the door, above which the words 'system administrator' flaunted, he stopped, taking a deep breath once more, before it opened with a hiss.

Dark yellow light illuminated the room. In the middle stood a long, heavy table, around which numbers, pictures and other files were projected in a soft curve. A small couch was on each side, seemingly new and unused. On the back was a broad window, in front of which a programme with brown hair and yellow circuitry colour stood now, its back facing Zuse.

"You are late."

Behind Zuse the door closed again. He took a quick look around, before fixing his eyes onto the man again with a faked smile on his lips. "Oh, when I get an invitation by a programme in such exalted position, I have to primp myself accordingly! You have no idea how long I had to think about what to wear.", he joked.

CLU turned to him. He had put on a smile as well. "I should've expected it from you." He sat down on the swivel chair behind the desk, letting the projections disappear with a wiping movement of his hand. "You surely would like to know why I asked you to come."

"Oh, no, I'm a lot more interested in small talk with your highness!", Zuse replied with an overexcited voice. "So, how is dictatorship going, my dear? Everything fine? Come one, tell me about it!"

CLU leant back, squeezing the fingertips of both hands together. "It's all right. Except the thing with Susan, what I wanted to talk to you about."

Instantly, Zuse's smile became bitter.

Had CLU found her? Impossible. He couldn't know in the slightest where she was, he and Shaddix were the only ones who knew about her current location and the bartender would never betray Zuse.

"What about her?"

For a moment, CLU just stared at him, before he raised his voice again. "Zuse, where is she?", he said, emphasising every single word.

Inside, a wave of relief overcame him, weakening him in such an extent that he would love to lie down now, though, he just let out a sigh. "Oh, CLU, why do we have to go over this again? You know exactly that I will not tell you anything about it. And don't you dare to begin to threaten me again. Think about our arrangement. I help you with your little gestapo-act, you in turn keep your hands off of my club, the programmes near and dear to me and, most important of all, myself. And I did a good job, recently. You wouldn't be a bad business man and break our engagement, just..." He strolled over to one of the couches, sat down in an elegant way and crossed his legs. "...because of Susan, would you?"

"It became essential to find her now. To be honest, it surprises me that you're not already in the know about it, but a short time ago a few programs managed to steal entries concerning Susan from the Grid archive."

Zuse wiped invisible lint from his right glove. "I know..."

"And do you know what they stole it for, as well?" CLU stood up, whereby his long dark robe slid to the ground again. With arms crossed behind his back, he positioned himself in front of the window

once more. "They adore her. Programs from the lower levels begin to forget their hatred for the Users and celebrate Susan as a heroine for her courage to stand up to me. They should loathe her for her origin, her name should not have any meaning in their minds anymore. But no... She means a lot to them. Just like Tron..." He turned to Zuse again. "They have to understand what a traitor of the system she is, before deleting her from their memory completely."

Zuse raised one brow. "So that nobody becomes aware of the errors in your oh so perfect system?"

CLU narrowed his eyes to slits. "There. Are. No. Errors. In my system. I will have managed to take it to its maximum potential soon, all by myself. But Tron and Susan... They could ruin everything. The thought of them makes the programs phlegmatic and lazy. They begin to take care of other things than the actual purpose they were written for. Therefore, the image of both of them has to be torn out of the minds of the people, as if they never existed. The revolution in Argon, provoked by this Tron-Lives-cult, was easy to quell, but a revolution in Tron City, how small it might be, must not be risked. That could change everything."

Zuse laughed. "And what would you do, if you really managed to get your hands on Susan? Would you let your sentries execute her in front of the whole Grid?" He stood up. "It would backfire on you. A martyr's death... Yes, that's all Susan's reputation needed. You would motivate the programmes to behave like her even more, stand up to you and your system. They would deify her. And, believe me, you couldn't stand a chance against the uprising that would emerge thereby."

CLU shook his head. "I wouldn't kill her in public. I wouldn't kill her at all."

"Of course not...", the white-haired said in a mixture of amusement and incredulity.

However, CLU remained serious. "No, I wouldn't." He took a step towards Zuse. "But I would make her one of us."

"One of... us?"

"I would reprogram her, not too much, otherwise she wouldn't be the Susan you can have so much fun with anymore, just insofar that she supports me with her strength and eliminates every rebellious program there is and as she proceeds without mercy, completely different to how she acted in the arena, they would lose faith in her naturally. The perfect fighting machine, as part of the perfect system. Just like me..." CLU let his forefinger tip onto Zuse's chest. "... and you."

With an angry look in his eyes Zuse slapped CLU's hand away. "I am not one of you.", he hissed.

"Are you sure?", CLU asked laughing and sat down into his chair again. Then his expression darkened. "If you don't bring me Susan, then the programs who worship her. They must not collect more information about her. I. Want. Those. Programs. Is that understood?"

Zuse wanted to reply something, foaming with rage, though, there the door opened with a hiss and CLU's bodyguard, followed by two other sentries, entered the room. He looked at them for a short while, before turning to CLU again, who just gave him a grin.

"Isn't it about time to open your club? I think you should attend to making the necessary preparations."

For a few moments Zuse glared at CLU, then he grabbed his cane firmly and marched out.

When he left the building, he instantly turned into the next empty alley, leaning against a wall with closed eyes. Suddenly, he kicked into the air, letting off steam with a protracted scream, until he had no more strength to do so and let himself slide down to the ground, panting.

He rubbed his face. "I am not one of you, I am not one of you...", he repeated quietly again and again.

What was he supposed to do? He didn't want to destroy the programme's faith in Susan. He wanted the whole Grid to know what an incredibly wonderful woman she was. Though, now his order was to prevent that. And he due to the deal with CLU he couldn't just refuse to do that.

Zuse let out a deep sigh.

How badly he wanted to buy a ticket to Argon to meet up with Susan, touch her face, look into those beautiful dark eyes, kiss her lips... However, this conversation with CLU showed him that it still wasn't time to contact her, otherwise this lunatic might find her and, as he just explained to him, make a monster out of her.

Distraction. He needed distraction from all of that now.

Zuse typed a few orders into the communication console on his left forearm and waited for some moments, until a woman's voice came out of it: "_Hello?_"

"Gem?"

"_Castor_...", the siren answered in a cheerful tone. "_How are you?_"

Zuse faked a likewise happy voice. "Good, good! I just wanted to ask if you are in the mood to come by before the club openes, spending time with me alone..."

She laughed seductively. "_How could I say 'no' to such an offer? I'm on my way. See you there._"

"I look forward to it."

"_Me too..._"

He let his arm sink again, remaining seated for another few moments, before he got up.

Yes, for now, spending time with the beautiful siren would distract him from the fact that he was about to betray his best friend.


	7. Chapter 5,1

_**Author's Note: Heya! Sooo this chapter (splitted into a few parts because of its length) is one of the reasons why this ff is Rated M. If you don't like two men having sex, you shouldn't read this chap (it happens in 5.3), if you do, though... Well then you'll love this one ;)**_

_**ENJOY, programmes, and please let me know if you liked or whatever you wanna tell me (REVIEW :P)**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 5.1<strong>

"What you let loose here is total nonsense."

"No, it's not!" Kyto tried to turn his body into Zuse's direction, but the safety belts in the light roadster prevented him from doing so. "If we all formed a queue, across the Outlands right up to the Sea of Simulation, which is chock-full of energy as the archive told me, holding our hands firmly and the last touching the water there, we all would get charged! We'd just have to repeat that each day cycle and then all energy problems would void!"

Zuse frowned, looking straight ahead during driving. "And how exactly are you going to get all the inhabitants of the Grid to hold hands every damn cycle?"

The black-haired shrugged. "It's in everyone's interest. If you ask politely-"

Zuse laughed. "_Ask politely_?! You do not get anything by _asking politely_!"

"Why not?!"

The white-haired programme brought the car to a stop at the cross-roads. While other vehicles passed by them, he let go of the wheel to hold his head as if it was aching. "Kyto, what is that for a dreamland you live in?"

"Dreamland?! Let me tell you something, my friend...!"

Whilst they were talking across each other at their argument, they didn't notice a group of programmes approaching them, only when a loud "Hey!" sounded, the two paused. Zuse looked out of the window to his left, spotting the three programmes that ran towards his roadster.

"Do you know them?", Kyto who had detected them as well asked.

"No...", Zuse answered slowly. Then a thought hit him, making him cringe. "Duck!", he quickly commanded to Kyto.

"Why? What's happening?!"

"Maybe they recognised you!"

Kyto's eyes widened and he let out a curse, instantly trying to make himself really small in the seat, though, there a knock against the pane next to Zuse rang out already.

"Hello!", a girl with a wide smile exclaimed, her sparkling eyes fixed on Zuse. She and the two other programmes behind her waved vigorously.

Zuse and Kyto exchanged a short confused look, before they put on a smile, waving back at them. At the push of a button the pane disappeared and Zuse said: "Heeey..."

"Oh damn!" The girl hopped up and down. "I told you it was him!" Before Zuse had the chance to ram his disc into her face out of fear she was about to reveal Kyto's identity, she added in a happy and squeaking tone: "You are CASTOR!"

Zuse's frozen expression relaxed. "Yes, I am."

The only male programme of the group, now standing next to the girl, excitedly said: "W-we love you! We've never missed one of your EOLC-Outdoor-Parties!"

Zuse beamed with joy. "Ah, wonderful! Did you enjoy them?"

"SURE! The best cycles of our lives!", the third one of the group brought out.

The first quickly raised to speak again: "I-I know you're probably very busy, buuuuut..." With one voice the three shouted, sticking some hexagonal cards toward him: "Can we have an autograph?!"

Zuse's laugh was buoyant. "Of course. Just a nano."

As he wanted to get out of the car, Kyto held him back. "Won't the programmes behind us get mad at us for stopping in thee middle of the road?"

"Oh, don't worry about that." Towards the group he said: "By the way, this is... Kay."

They gave him a wave too.

"So..." Zuse took the first card, touched the middle of it, whereupon a luminous projection was created above of it, wherein he wrote down his name now. "What are such lovely fans of the End Of Line Club doing here in the lower levels?"

"Well..." The three exchanged quick looks, before the bubbliest of them replied in an embarrassed tone: "We live here aaand therefore we've never been able to afford to... uhm... visit the EOLC... BUT we save everything we have to move to the upper levels. The main reason for that is your club!"

"Oh, I am very pleased to hear that my facility serves you as incentive for such a difficult task to undertake."

"My walls are full of pictures of you...", the other girl of the group said quietly, looking to the ground.

Zuse laughed, whereas the others just stared at her.

"Dude! You're creeping him out!", the bubbly girl hissed.

"Don't pretend to NOT have a full-size projection of him in your bedr-"

"WHAAAAA?!" She put her hand onto her friend's mouth, as Zuse gave her the card back with a smirk on his lips. "She... uh... I don't know what she's talking about! Hehe..."

"Too bad. I would have loved to hear what exactly a full-size projection of myself is good for...", Zuse said, piercing her with the gaze of his silver-shining eyes.

"Uh... well, uh, to kneel before it... I MEAN in an adoring way and uuuuh-"

"Ave." She looked at the boy of the group. "Just shut up. YOU are the one becoming a creep here."

The girl pressed her lids together. "SORRYYY!"

Zuse laughed. "It's all right, I find you amusing. Indeed, you remind me of a good friend of mine..." At the thought of Susan his smile grew bigger automatically, making the programmes around him beam again. "Besides..." He gave the bubbly girl a seductive smirk. "... if I was this projection of myself, I'd certainly be very happy with the way you adore me."

For a moment she just looked at him with widened eyes, then began to knead her face to keep the "MmmmmwaaaaAAA!" that threatened to bluster out, behind her lips.

There the sound of Kyto clearing his throat sounded, whereupon Zuse gave him a nod. "I'd better get going. The club is waiting."

"Can we take a photo before you go?"

"Why certainly!" Zuse took the pin the boy held out to him and handed it over to Kyto. "Would you be so kind, Kay?"

"Sure."

While the black-haired got out of the roadster, taking the pin, the bubbly girl positioned herself on Zuse's right, the boy on his left and beside him the third of the group. Zuse eyed the girl next to him, whispering: "Don't be so shy, come a bit closer, my sweeties..." The boy leant onto him just like the girl did, but then she also flung her arms around his neck, when he put his around her hip.

"Oookay, stay...", Kyto said, pulling the pin apart so that a luminous field emerged in between the two parts of it. "Say 'Bit'!"

"BIT!"

He tipped onto it and there the image was saved onto the field. While Kyto gave the pin back to the boy, getting in the light roadster again, the bubbly girl shouted: "THANKSTHANKSTHANKS!", after Zuse had loosened her grip.

"It's okay, darling. Your name is Ave, am I right? And you two are...?"

"Moque."

"Sira."

Zuse nodded, strolling back to the car. "How about you three pretty yourself up a bit and come to the EOLC later? I'll put you on the guest list. Oh, and don't forget to bring a copy of this lovely picture we just made. Thank you..."

Three pairs of eyes widened, before each one of the group began to scream and jump, making Zuse giggle at getting in.

"THANK YOU, CASTOR! WE LOVE YOU! SEE YAAA!", they called after them, as the light roadster hit the road again.

A long while they were silent, Kyto staring at Zuse, who was looking straightforward with a light smile on his face. Then the young programme raised to speak: "What. For Grid's sake. Was. THAT?"

Zuse gave him a look of wonderment. "What do you mean?"

"Why are these programs worshipping you? Are you kinda famous or something like that?"

"Kinda famous, good one...", Zuse chuckled. "You probably haven't noticed it yet, since you cannot leave your apartment that often, but there are promotional projections of me and my club all around Tron City, whetting the programmes' appetite for allowing themselves a delicious drink in the best establishment of the entire Grid."

"I thought programs from the lower levels are not allowed in your club."

"They aren't, I mean, what are they going to pay the drinks with? With their tiny salary? I beg you."

"Then why are you and the EOLC promoted down here too?"

"Because every single programme has a fair chance to become a star, no matter what they are written for or where they live, and the EOLC serves as a symbol for reaching this goal. You know, everything simply drops into the laps of some, they are already written for a purpose that makes them famous, such as Tron. His directive was to protect the system, he was quasi genetically predisposed to be an invincible fighter. On the other hand, there are programmes like Susan Gifford who had to acquire all their capabilities on their own. She had to practise for a long time, a very long time, kept working hard, exercised patience and, after a while, came to the fame she's genuinely earned..." He paused shortly, before his voice adopted a darker tone. "... but got destroyed within one night just by the use of a few words..."

Kyto waited a moment, then asked: "And to which sort do you belong to?"

Zuse gave him a quick look, putting on a wide smile again. "To the latter, of course! That's why the EOLC is such a symbol! I was nothing but an ordinary interpreter once. Well, not quite ordinary, I was the best interpreter at all! However, this job definitely did not help me to gain the prominence I have always dreamt of and also achieved after working hard and a lot, using my natural entertaining talent. The Purge was a heavy setback that made me live on the streets and start all over again. It took more time than I expected, but soon I had worked my way up to the top once again. Even better: I became more famous than ever before and, well, this is what I am now. A celebrity."

"And what outdoor parties have the three been talking about?"

"After the Purge I wanted to offer something special to the programmes of Tron City, something no other entertainer here was willing to offer, since it could have led to riots, which they would have to vouch for. Parties in the midst of the streets of Tron City..." He laughed quietly. "Actually, it was completely illegal to arrange something like that, but..." Zuse gave Kyto a smirk. "... I couldn't care less." Looking straight ahead again, he spoke with a fully enchanted voice, as if he was taking a trip down to memory lane. "Oh, you should have seen it! It always felt like a fairytale coming true. What began as nothing but an experiment with a small stage, two DJs, a few dancers and me, turned out to be the most visited party of all time! Really, despite opulent promotion, I expected just a very small crowd at the first EOLC-Outdoor-Party, but soon even the streets in the vicinity of the event were full of programmes, dancing to the music we had to play louder than originally planned, so that it could get through to every single one of our guests. The next time we'd already installed douzens of speakers in our surroundings, of course, just as well as screen projections, showing the happenings on stage, so that it was no problem anymore to reach the masses. Each of those outdoor parties became a huge success, which was perhaps also down to the fact that I let them take place somewhere else every time, not only in the top level, but also down here in the lower ones, to give the less wealthy programmes the chance to get a part of the spirit of the End Of Line Club. It was a perfect dream... Oh, you have no idea what an overwhelmingly great feeling it is to enter the stage and hear thousands cheering and screaming your name. This is what I understand by heaven, my dear Kyto..." When the young programme didn't react, Zuse asked frowning: "Kyto?"

"Mhm.", he uttered, though, his thoughts were far away.

He had visualised everything his counterpart had just told him, had empathised with Zuse and was now entirely mesmerised by the thought of it. Yes, he would call that heaven too... programmes, impatiently waiting for HIM. Programmes, screaming HIS name. Programmes, forever remembering these few moments they could have a gawp at HIM. He wished he could experience something like that, he wished he was having such an exciting live like his friend Castor, being admired, adored, even worshipped, but no, he was caged in his tiny apartment. It hurt, no matter how good he understood why he shouldn't leave it.

There something hit him. "By the way, it's cool that you called me Kay in front of them, Castor."

"Really? At such a short notice I just couldn't think of anything other than that. I like the name Kyto better, but 'Kay' is a good nickname for you. I'm glad it appeals to you."

Dreamily, Kyto looked out of the window beside him. "Yes. Yes, it does..."

* * *

><p>Zuse stood at the back side of the club, looking out of the huge window there.<p>

His three fans had no idea that Zuse didn't invite them here out of pure generosity, of course. He was glad about every guest in his club, indeed, especially those who adored him, however, despite all the joy their words had brought to him, he must not forget about his task: Finding the programmes who hacked into CLU's database to gain information about Susan. Zuse hated it to visit the lower levels, even more he hated it to approach programmes there, whereby this incident today was a fortunate twist of fate. Now, potential informants came to him, without him having to enter those dirty areas of the lower levels.

As he turned around, observing the dancing and conversing programmes in his club with a faked smile, the three just coming out of the elevator, looking around with mouth agape, instantly caught his eye.

One of them called Ave grabbed one arm of each of her friends. "Guuuuuys! Are you aware that we just entered the END OF LINE CLUB?!"

The others squeaked quietly, however, when they took a step forwards together, they already got held back by a tall man with tie and silver eye cover. "I am sorry, but you can't enter."

"Oh, it's alright!", Ave sputtered quickly. "We're on the guest list!"

"Really?"

"Mhm. Ave, Moque and Sira."

The others greeted the man sheepishly.

He eyed them for a moment, tipped on his temple then, scouring the luminous guest list that opened up behind his silver cover for their names, before a smile spread on his face. "Indeed. Castor let you get rostered less than a quarter of a millicycle ago." He bowed slightly, pointing at the bar with his palm. "Have fun in the EOLC, programs."

They nodded eagerly, took a deep breath and then walked up towards the bar stiffly and wide-eyed.

"I can't believe it...", Moque whispered. "Look at all of that! How noble and... oh the music! Can we stay here forever, guys?!"

Sira took in her environment still with her mouth agape, as Ave answered: "Dude, I wanna get derezzed here to become a part of the floor of this amazing place!" Then she paused, cringed and clung to Moque's arm. "Castor 2 o'clock! CASTOR 2 O'CLOCK!", she squeaked as quiet as possible.

As the others also spotted the chatting club owner, they joined hands, squeezing them.

"User, this is the wonderful afterlife!"

"Okay, okay!" Ave gave her friends a stern look. "We mustn't freak out. That's just uncool. I guess the best bet is to sit down at the bar and calm ourselves."

As soon as they reached the bar, a bearded man smiled at them. "Hey, guys! How's it going?"

"Terrific!"

"You must be the three fans Castor met today, right?"

They let out an embarrassed laugh.

"Is that so obvious?", Moque asked in a slightly ashamed tone.

Shaddix laughed. "Well, there aren't many programs hopping and squeaking around at the club entrance like overloaded bits."

"Oh, shit, I hope Castor won't chuck us out for our weird behavior...", Ave said frowning.

"Don't worry, girl..." He leant over he counter and gave her a wink. "Castor is an ego-maniac. He totally goes for this fangirl stuff."

She felt the energy accumulate in her cheeks, making them glow, whereupon she quickly put her hands on her face. "Guuuuys, my fucking cheeks get hot aga-" Ave furrowed her brows as she noticed that noone was standing next to her anymore. "Guys?" There she spotted her friends on the dancefloor, cheerfully wiggling their bodies.

"If you feel lonely, I would love to bear you company, my dear."

At the sound of this soft voice next to her, she cringed. Slowly Ave turned to the left. Looking at Zuse's smirk, her cheeks got even hotter and she almost hit them with her palms. "Heeeey, hello, Castooor, hehe... Y-y-you look... fantastic..." The last word she had to press out of her non-existent lungs, since the sight of him took her breath away.

Zuse laughed. "Thank you. But I have to say that you and your friends rigged yourselves up pretty well too."

She replied with a wide smile. There Zuse suddenly put his hands on hers, which turned her flattered expression into a shocked one. Inside, she screamed of joy.

"Why are you hiding your glowing cheeks from me? They look absolutely gorgeous!" He took her hands away from her face. "Ah, way better!"

Ave bit her bottom lip to not squeak once again.

Zuse held his arm out to her. "Come, you cutie, let's take a seat at the back and have a nice chat, while your friends let off steam."

She linked arms with him, sighing deeply. "I'd love to..."

* * *

><p>Kyto lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.<p>

Since Castor had dropped him off at his apartment, he could only think of one thing: being a star.

He also wanted to be admired and adored like his best friend, wanted earn looks of desire or envy too, wanted everyone to know his name and simply be recognised everywhere. Kyto wanted to be famous, shine like a star on the sky in the Userworld. Though, how did you get to fame? You had to be capable of doing something special, possess an interesting talent. Susan, for instance, was an excellent fighter.

With a deep sigh, he turned to the side, sulking.

He himself wasn't capable of doing anything. How should he? His activation was only half a cycle ago. Susan and Castor had had hundreds of them to acquire their skills.

Castor... What was it that made him famous? He was capable of so many things, was so incredibly intelligent, funny, elegant, confident...

At one go, Kyto came to sit.

Castor was salient. He looked different from the others, behaved differently. And THAT was it. Castor. Was. Different. It was totally comprehensible that he was famous, after all his extraversion blocked out every sense of shame for how he looked, how he behaved and everything else, which impressed other programmes, made them love him.

Kyto wanted to be just like this, like Castor.

Crouching in front of the window above the bed, he eyed the reflexion of his face. His black hair was feebly hanging down his forehead, his eyes had a nice green colour, indeed, but due to its paleness it was only really perceptible when standing near him, and his suit was simple, ordinary, unobstrusive... boring. Kyto looked boring and he hated it. Castor... His eyes were of a piercing silver, which was even more emphasised by his blue makeup, styled white hair and a suit that was not to be surpassed in elegance. His whole appearance was so lucent, so glamorous...

A smirk formed on Kyto's lips.

Maybe he was no star, but that didn't mean he couldn't look like one.


	8. Chapter 5,2

**CHAPTER 5.2**

"So you share a flat! Great! I can imagine it making you feel save, since living alone in the lower levels can get quite dangerous with all those occurrences of crime. For example, I heard that someone down there even dared to hack into the central database of CLU!", Zuse said, wildly gesticulating with his gloved hands.

"Yes, it's true, that did the rounds already." Ave grimaced, showing her aversion towards this incident.

"You can probably catch even more about it than we do here. In the top level such activities usually get... concealed to not cause any civil unrest. Do you happen to know any details about this hacking attack, dearest?" Thoughtfully, she looked to the side, causing Zuse to add quickly: "Sorry, I am far too curious!"

She giggled. "No, it's alright! I just had to think if I ever heard anything apart from rumors at all."

Zuse smirked. "I love rumours. Tell me everything, darling."

A wide smile spread over her face again. "Okay, uuuuhm... They say the goal of this group was to find out how this... what was her name again... how Susan could escape during 'Her Fall' half a cycle ago."

"'Her Fall'?"

"Yeah, somehow it became established to call her last fight in the arena that way. Y'know, when the truth about her was revealed."

"I see..." Immediately, a light feeling of sickness overcame Zuse. Did those programmes find out that HE had been the one who rescued Susan? Would they make it public and therefore also disclose his identity as the legend Zuse? "And did they get any results at their search?"

"I don't know, I'm sorry..."

Zuse laughed. "You do not have to apologise! It's an inappropriate topic for a conversation with a lady anyway."

"No, no! It's okay! I-I like everything you talk about... I mean... uh..." She sighed. "Oh, damn..."

A smirk played around Zuse's lips. "Are you nervous, my dear Ave?"

At the sound of him giving voice to her name with such a softness, she felt as if her circuits were about to overheat, making her body melt. "A-a bit..."

He came a bit closer. "Why is that, I wonder. Do you realise only now that I'm not some full-size projection, but a real programme that can be..." He grinned. "... touched?"

She sucked in her own lips to suppress another squeak.

By all the flirting with his fan, Zuse didn't notice his doormen allowing somebody to pass, whom they used to stop from entering the club. The reason for that was that Kyto didn't look like an ordinary programme from the lower levels anymore. His vivid green eyes got emphasised perfectly by the black make up surrounding them, his formerly slack looking hair was now arranged in a jaunty, spiky style and his suit was close-fitting, showing the contours of his slim, athletic body. At his upper arms the black fabric, across which dazzingly green circuitry lines spread, was interrupted, just to cover his fair skin down the forearms to his hands like long fingerless gloves then.

With attentive eyes he walked up to the bar. A cheerful smirk played around his lips, when he noticed some programmes in the club turning their curious gazes at him. Slowly he took a seat on one of the stools.

"What's it to be, boy?", he heard the bartender ask, before he even stood in front of him.

"The same like last time, please." Shaddix frowned, whereat Kyto had to laugh. "Shad, it's me! Kyto!"

His eyes widened. "Whaaat?! Maaan..." The bartender joined in laughing. "Good Grid, what so you look like? I didn't recognise you at all!"

Kyto shrugged. "That's the goal. Thereby nobody would be able to identify me and I can get out of my apartmentment on my own, finally. Besides..." He grinned. "... I thought a little makeover would suit me." Then his expression changed and he gave Shaddix an almost anxious look. "Do I look overdone?"

The bartender laughed out loud, patting the programme's shoulder. "No, amigo, you look amazing!"

In thoughts, Zuse agreed with him.

Ave just told him about how exuberantly she and her friends had danced at the first EOLC Outdoor Party, however, at the moment he only had eyes for the programme just giving Shaddix a sunny smile. He did recognise Kyto, indeed, but he just couldn't believe it was him.

Even though the black-haired became a good friend to him lately, he still had had the programme that detested him so much in his head at his sight, still had seen his appearance in his mind's eye everytime he thought of Susan's last fight in the arena. But THIS? No, this wasn't that programme. This was... Kyto was...

Zuse swallowed hard.

Kyto was attractive. His bright eyes conveyed a feeling of joy, his hair invited everybody around him to run their fingers through it and his lips shimmered, seemed like the softest lips the Grid had ever generated. Zuse's eyes wandered down, since Kyto's body also made him think of...

No!

Indiscernibly, Zuse shook his head, fixing his eyes onto the girl in front of him again. Kyto was a beautiful creature, indeed, but he was just a friend. Nothing else. It would made Zuse feel highly uncomfortable, if images forced their way into his mind that he would have never thought of without his friend's makeover. Furthermore, it was extremely impolite to concentrate onto an other programme than Ave now.

"And yeah, it was unbelievable. One of the best cycles of my live...", Ave ended her story a bit out of breath and with a wide smile on her face. "I always wanted to thank you for that and now I'm in your club, talking to you and aaah!" Once again, she put her hands on her cheeks, though, this time the corners of her mouth didn't sink from embarrassment.

Zuse grinned at her. "So you like it here?"

"Of course! Every corner, every detail, simply everything is soo WOW!"

"Well... You didn't see everything yet, though. Take a look up there." She followed his pointing finger. "This is my private lounge. There I retire in case all of this gets too much for me or if I want to talk to somebody in confidence. Do you want to see it?"

She jumped up a little, grabbing his arm. "OH YES!"

Together they wound through the crowd, though, Zuse didn't navigate them towards his lounge at first, but to the bar, where he leant to the counter next to Kyto.

"Now look who's here!", he said, grinning.

In an instant, a wide smile spread over Kyto's face. "Hey, Castor!"

Zuse eyed him. "When you told me you would like to change your appearance, I didn't have an idea of what one could get out of you."

"So, you're not mad at me for leaving my apartment without letting you know?", Kyto asked cautiously.

Zuse carried out a placating gesture with his hand. "Oh, I beg you. You obviously have thought it out carefully, so there is absolutely no reason for me to be angry with you."

"By the way, it's awesome here! I mean, I've been here some times already, but it has never been so full of... energy!" At his next thought, Kyto's circuitry centre, his heart, leapt. "Hey, will you show me how to enjoy oneself here?"

Zuse cocked his head, taking a deep breath. "Yeeeeees... No. I have to attend to a special guest now."

Kyto spotted Ave who had been standing behind Zuse the whole time, whereupon she held her hand out to him. "Kay, right?"

Kyto's smile got a bit smaller, though, he maintained it to not make an impolite impression. "Yes, right. And sorry what was your name again?"

"Ave."

Zuse gently put his hand on her hip. "I just wanted to show her my lounge."

"Ah, yes, it looks great. You'll like it."

"Well then." Once again, Zuse let his eyes wander over his counterpart's appearance. "I wish you a wonderful evening, my dear. Enjoy your newly acquired freedom! Have fun!"

"Thanks, you too..."

And there Zuse turned away from him, strolled through the club, until he let the stairs to his lounge hover up and, with the excited looking girl on his side, disappeared from Kyto's sight.

When he came here, his goal had been to attract attention and, considering the curious looks and smiles he earnt from the programmes around, he also got it. Just not from the programme he wanted it the most.

Sighing, he turned to the counter again and sipped on his drink, looking around. Everytime he spotted someone watching him, the programme took it's eyes from him immediately, which made him feel a surge of light anger. Kyto wanted to be adored, not observed quietly and secretly. Had all of that been a bad idea after all? Did he just fool himself and in reality he didn't have what it takes to be a star? He didn't even know if he had a talent. Perhaps, he simply should return to his apart,ent, before someone could actually identify him.

"Sulking in the EOLC is like the dumping grounds in Gallium.", he perceived a female voice next to him. A few seats along sat a woman, having her dark eyes fixed on him and swirling a glass filled with orange liquid. "Not appreciated and nothing but shit." She emptied the drink in one gulp, slid from the stool just to take a seat next to Kyto again and look at him without smiling, just with an attentive gaze. Her hair was yellow and fell onto her shoulders in big curls, her eyes were surrounded by a dark blue ribbon and her lips formed a round heart of pink. She wore a dress that showed a lot of skin, which was cluttered with luminous forms like tattoos, and had sea blue circuitry colour.

"Chameleon-CR. But you can call me Cam.", she said, holding her hand out to him. "And you're Kay, if I didn't mishear it earlier."

He shook her hand, smiling lightly, which she didn't return.

"So, Kay...", she raised her voice, while letting her eyes wander over his body. "I see you don't enjoy yourself here like you should."

"Well, my expectations have been to high, I guess..."

"On the club?"

"No! No, of course not! The club is amazing, it's just..."

She lifted her chin a bit. "The programs are not."

Kyto took a deep breath, as if he was about to disagree, but then he just nodded.

"You expected them to treat you differently, because of all the changes you made to yourself." With her elbow she leant against the counter. "And they do, but not in the way you banked on, at least not in that extent. That makes you doubt that you ever really changed, or if it was just another attempt to step out of your own self."

Kyto blinked in bewilderment. "Y-yes, that's exactly how I feel! Where do you know that from?"

"My programming purpose was to make others transparent, so that it would be easier to overlookmthe programs and read them. I observe and draw conclusions from what I see."

With a fascinated expression on his face, he nodded. Her words totally reflected the thoughts in his mind. 'Step out of your own self'. Kyto, the old Kyto, had not been like him. He wanted to leave his shadow, finally, and lead his own life. But no matter how hard he tried, it didn't seem to be enough.

"Y'know, Kay," Bright green eyes locked with dark ones. "every new beginning is tough. There will always be someone who will see your old self in you. You got to avoid those programs. You got to avoid everything that has something to do with your old self. Have you been in this club in the past?"

"Yes, frequently."

"Well, then you should try it elsewhere with the same expectations you had on this place, since to a spot where noone knows your old self, it can't follow you. Besides..." She leant towards him, motioning him to do the same and whispered, smiling: "Don't let the reactions of those snobs here discourage you. Most of the top level programs are way too narcissistic and just idiotic."

Kyto laughed. He liked this Cam. She spoke directly from his heart and gave him the feeling that despite her provocative look she was full of wisdom.

"So, what do you think, Kay? You wanna get out of here?"

For a few moments he remained silent. Then a grin spread over his face. "I'll drive."

* * *

><p>'What in Grid's name were you thinking?!', Castor's voice resounded in Kyto's head, as he parked Cam's small truck in front of a tall building, whose round windows only let a few beams of red light through to the streets. Panic began to seize him. Maybe he shouldn't have trusted this programme so quickly, shouldn't have come here.<p>

Once again, Cam read his face. "You piss your pants, right?"

"I... It's not..." He paused. Then he looked at her. "You're not planning to mug or delete me, are you?"

She let her eyes wander up, as if she was considering it, and said then: "No, actually not. Are you?"

"Of course not!"

"What are you afraid of, Kay?", she asked calmly.

"I don't know, you tell me."

For a long moment, Cam eyed him. "You think you won't make it to start anew, no matter where or how you try it. You feel alone, deserted from those who've always supported you."

Involuntarily, he had to think of Castor. He would probably feel much better, if he was here with him now.

"But you know what?", the woman continued. "You can only master a new beginning on your own. If you don't feel ready yet, it's okay. Try it another time. But if you puss out now just because it could get difficult, I tell you..." She opened the door next to her. "... stop it or I'll make you stop."

Kyto remained seated for a nano, before he followed her. Taking a deep breath, he asked: "So what are we doing here?"

"Something, you'll like."

"Where do you wanna know if I like it?"

Cam shrugged and entered the building through the front door.

Kyto sighed, shaking his head. "I'll definitely regret that...", he said to himself, stepped in as well and instantly got greeted by immensely loud music.

It was a huge hall, chock-full of programmes, all of which were looking straightforward, jumping and cheering, since on the very front was a podest, a stage, whereon two programmes stood encircled by columns of green light. By the help of the projections within the light pillars they produced electrifying sounds, and in between stood a man who was - Kyto had never seen something like that before - singing. It was unbelievable! It sounded completely different to the music in Castor's club, louder and somehow more real. With each breath it felt like Kyto was absorbing this amazing atmosphere. It flowed through him like electricity, filling him with new energy.

There he sensed Cam's hand on his, interrupting his thoughts and making him wince. With her chin she pointed at the stage. "Would you rather stand here at the back or in the first row?", she shouted over the screaming crowd and deafening beat.

"Whatever you want!"

She smiled and began to fight her way through the masses, pulling Kyto with her. When they finally made it to the stage, huffing and puffing from the efforts, Cam put her hands up in the air and moved apposite to the cadence. Kyto emulated her deeds.

He screamed, he laughed, and, as soon as he discerned the structure of the song, he sang along. He'd never felt that alive. Kyto felt like an entirely new programme.

They continued dancing like this until after a bit more than a quarter of a millicycle the columns of light suddenly disappeared and the programmes on the stage took their hands, throwing them into the air, which made the whole audience cheer lourdly. Kyto applauded, let out some short screams, couldn't set limits to his enthusiasm.

There the Cam's voice on his ear interrupted his outburst of joy. "Let's go and get some fresh air!"

"Okay!"

They wound through the first row of cheering programmes, heading for the side exit, which was marked by a luminous hologram of an arrow. When Cam kicked the door open, she and Kyto took a deep breath as if they were reaching the water surface after a long dive. The cool night air let a tingling sensation spread over their bodies.

Kyto leant against one of the colourful walls of the alley they were standing in. Cam did the same right next to him.

"Wow...", he brought forward after a while.

The woman laughed softly. "I know. The first concert is always quite stunning." She turned her head into Kyto's direction. "You're a very good singer, did you know that?"

"Huh?"

"Everytime you sang along, I preferred to listen to you than to the program on stage. You have a powerful, extraordinary voice."

Kyto kept his eyes on the ground. "Thanks...", he said sheepishly.

Silence spread, though, it was a pleasant one. In Kyto's ears the music from inside the building still echoed and he closed his eyes, imagining himself standing up there on that stage and singing. He would love to do that. He would love to be cheered, to enchant everyone with his songs just like theirs have enchanted him a few moments ago.

The soft touch on his arm brought him back to reality. He opened his eyes, faced the gently smiling Cam in front of him. She also put her second Hand onto his other arm. "Thanks for that nice evening, Kay. It can get quite scary to be alone sometimes."

"I can imagine!", he laughed. "So many programs in one room! Man!"

She eyed him. "You know what makes a new beginning perfect?" Her hands slid up over his shoulders to his face, where she stroked his cheeks with her thumbs, raising herself on tiptoes to get closer to his face.

Suddenly, Kyto's heart began to race like mad. All bits in his body were on high alert, made his skin tingle unpleasantly and before Cam could put her lips on his, he quickly slipped away under her arms and stumbled to the side. "Uh... I... uh... Thanks for all of that and... uh... for your advice... I gotta go now. I hope we'll meet again sometime... Bye!" He hastened down the alley, as if he was on the run.

Shortly before he could turn into the next street, he heard Cam call: "Hey, stop at once!"

Kyto obeyed to her order, facing her with an anxious expression. Cam still stood next to the wall, looking at him totally emotionless. Then she threw a small cube to him, which he could barely catch.

"You can have the car. I live a few steps from here."

"But... uhm... Thanks!"

"You're welcome. It's stolen anyway." She turned around and walked away, raising her hand at it. "See ya, Kay!"

A few moments he just looked after her, before going back to the small truck they came here with earlier and got in. He didn't drive, just sat there, clinging to the wheel and trying to calm his system down by taking some deep breaths.

What was THAT? Did Cam want to KISS him?! Kyto had read about it and sexuality in general in the archive Castor had compiled for him, though, he had never attached any kind of importance to it, only skimmed those entries. This short, unreturned gesture confused him so much that he simply couldn't think straight.

He had to tell Castor about it. The white-haired was certainly familiar with such things and could advise him.

With the help of the little cube he started the motor and hit the road.


	9. Chapter 5,3

**_Author's Note: LET THE SEXY TIMES BEGIN_**

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 5.3<strong>

Zuse and Shaddix were the only programmes in the club, cleaning it after its closing.

While the bartender was shifting a few bottles to its right place, he asked, grinning: "And did your little fan go down on her knees to adore you, if you know what I meeeean?"

Zuse raised one brow. "For real?"

"What?"

"If you talk about this topic in such a vulgar way, I won't tell you anything, my friend."

Commiseratively, Shaddix shook his head. "Practicing the Kama Sutra and not tell anybody about it. Man, you live a sad life. A sad, sad life..."

There the elevator doors opened with a hiss.

"Heeey, there's our Kaaay!", the bartender called, as Kyto entered. A bit more quietly, he added: "Hehe, it rhymes..." Then he took a short look around. "Seems like we're done, aren't we, boss?"

"Yes, we are.", Zuse replied. "Thank you for your help, dear."

Shaddix gave him a quick hug, before already leaving the club.

"Hi, Kyto. Would you mind coming up to the lounge whilst talking? I still have to tidy it."

Kyto nodded, following the white-haired programme up. While Zuse put a few half-empty bottles away from the counter at the back of the lounge, Kyto positioned himself amidst the room, clasping his right arm with his left hand with a still uneasy expression on his face.

"So, why are you here at this late hour? I thought you would be at home in your bed already, you bad boy!"

"I..." Shyly, he fixed his eyes on the ground. "I gotta talk to you."

"I am all ears, my dear."

Kyto didn't know how to put it and after a short while of struggling for words, he decided to tell the whole story. "I left the club with a woman and she took me to this really cool event I'll tell you about tomorrow. Now I can only concentrate on what happened afterwards... Me and this woman were standing in an alley and she thanked me for the nice evening and then... she came closer..."

Zuse stopped working immediately, looked at Kyto and slipped around the small bar with an "OOOOH!", leaning his back onto the front edge of the counter. "Kyto made oooouuut! Oh, how fast you grow up. It seems to me like it was yesterday when I activated you..."

The black-haired's eyes widened and he lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. "No, no! You got that wrong! I didn't..." He sighed, looking to the ground again. "I scrammed, before she could kiss me."

Zuse frowned. "Why?"

"I... I don't know! I panicked! I mean, she was nice and cool and pretty, but... I barely knew her!"

The white-haired man laughed. "Oh, Kyto, I already woke up next to programmes I couldn't even remember the faces of, let alone their names! Believe me, it is absolutely no shame to spend the night with strangers. In fact, it can get quite exciting, actually."

"But..." Again he let out a sigh, rubbing his face. "I dunno... I'm kinda scared of it."

"Of what exactly? Kissing or... what could occur afterwards?"

"Both."

In thoughts, Zuse touched his chin. "Hm... Do you have an idea why you feel frightened?"

"I'm not sure, but, well, I'm not familiar with it. I have to read about it, before I-"

"Read?!" Zuse burst into laughter. When he finally managed to calm himself more or less, he explained: "Please believe me, lovely, for this matter, the saying 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' pertains. There is no reading, which properly explains what a wonderful feeling it is to kiss somebody. You have to experience it on your own."

Kyto nodded slowly. "I guess you're right. But somehow... I feel extremely uncomfortable, when I only think about being in such a situation."

Zuse cocked his head to the side. "Well, perhaps you aren't ready yet. You have to feel completely confident about it and nobody knows when it is time for you to try it except yourself."

Folding his arms, Kyto kept staring at the ground, digesting what he just got to hear. Only after a short while, he spoke up again. "I think I have to come to know her or who ever I want to do this with better at first. I just can't imagine doing such a thing with somebody I don't trust and you know that I only trust you and Shaddix up to now."

"Sounds good. How about you go on a few dates with the lady from today and when the time has come, you will enjoy it for sure."

As he tried to imagine this moment Zuse just described, the moment he would kiss Cam, a queasy feeling overcame him. Kyto didn't want to kiss her. He'd liked her straight away, since she was symaphetic, intelligent and knew exactly how to enjoy oneself. Cam was an amazing programme. But he really didn't want to kiss her. Someone else, however...

"Or...", he raised his voice again, but fell silent again.

"Yes?"

Kyto let out a sheepish laugh. "Oh, nevermind! Forget that I said something!"

"Kyto?", Zuse said impatiently, raising one brow. "If you have to say something then do it. I am your best friend, I want to hear it."

The young programme kneaded its hands and he bit his upper lip, considering if he should really give voice to the thought that crossed his mind. "So... Well... I trust Shaddix and you. Shaddix is cool and I like him, but he probably wouldn't want that, so there's only you left. I mean... I trust you entirely... and you know so much about this topic... So, maybe, you could... well... kiss me..." He let out a slightly desperate sigh, rubbing his hands shivering of nervousness. "Damn, why are they sweating like this?!"

Zuse just stood there, not moving a bit, just staring at Kyto.

Did he just ask him for a kiss indirectly? Kyto, the programme, which had been the spitting image of a former enemy of his and now was someone completely different? Someone with dazzingly green eyes, black hair one would love to run one's fingers through, a beautiful slim, athletic body, where every muscle, every tendon looked so appealing to one's touch underneath this tight black fabric, and lips, that seemed so incredibly soft...

As his counterpart didn't show any kind of reaction, Kyto looked away ashamedly. "Oh, nevermind! I'm sorry, it was a stupid idea..." He began to walk towards the exit of the lounge. "I'd better be off now. See you, Castor!"

Before he could actually leave, Zuse's voice held him back. "Wait!"

Slowly he turned around with a light look of distress in his eyes.

Zuse opened his mouth a few times, searching for the right words. Eventually, he put a soft smile on his face. "Okay."

"Okay... what?", Kyto asked in confusion.

"Okay, I will kiss you, if you want me to."

Kyto's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"Of course. You obviously have certain fears and if I, as your friend, can do anything against it, then... Go ahead! I'd like to help you! Besides, therefore you can learn from the best!", Zuse laughed.

Again a pause of silence spread, in which Kyto tried to understand what was happening right now. At the thought of it, his heart didn't stop making leaps. "Uhm... Now?"

Zuse nodded. With voice soft as silk, he said: "Come here to me."

For a few moments, Kyto remained still, trembling lightly, his fists pressed to his thighs, and only taking shallow breaths. Then he swallowed, nodded and placed one foot in front of the other to not lose his balance because of the light dizziness that came over him. About half a metre in front of Zuse, he came to a stand, nervously looking in all directions except into the piercing eyes of his counterpart. "W-what am I supposed to do?"

"Relax... Kissing tensed lips is only half the pleasure."

Again he nodded, rubbed his cheeks in hopes of easing his face thereby.

Zuse, who had been leaning at the bar the entire time, slowly pushed himself off of it and laughed buoyantly, taking Kyto's hands from his face. "I am afraid that won't work, my dear. Just close your eyes."

Zuse glanced over Kyto's body, then looked up to his lips again, while slowly getting closer. "Breathe deeply. In and out."

Kyto followed his instructions.

"In... and out...", the white-haired repeated quietly. These perfect, soft looking lips... They were only inches away. "In... and out, Kyto." He licked over his own. "Relax..." Kyto took in a deep breath once more. "... and enjoy."

There Zuse put his mouth on Kyto's, who winced at the touch.

A wave of happiness flooded Kyto instantly, in his stomach region a strong tingling sensation spread, his circuitry colour began to glow brightly. It was the most beautiful feeling he could imagine. Zuse, in the meantime, was astonished at the fact that Kyto's lips were even softer than he'd thought, which had seemed completely impossible to him, though, the kiss proved otherwise. He let his right wander up, held the back of Kyto's neck at first, stroking it gently, before burying his fingers in his black hair, whereby he was able to carefully tilt Kyto's head to the side, in order to achieve a better access. He opened his mouth a bit, explored these incredibly soft lips of Kyto with his tongue, which the young programme parted slowly, allowing Zuse to invade the inwards of his mouth as well. A quiet moan escaped Kyto's throat, as his own tongue touched the one of his counterpart. For a moment they struggled for supremacy, but Kyto surrendered quickly, wanted to do everything the white-haired man demanded of him as service in return for those wonderful butterflies in his tummy.

And suddenly it was over.

Zuse gently pushed away from Kyto, smirking at him. "And this, my pretty boy, was your first kiss." Once again he briefly pressed is lips on Kyto's, let go of his hair, strolled around the small bar and attended to putting the bottles on the shelf in order again.

Fighting for air, Kyto stood their, blinking a few times and clinging to the edge of the counter. Bewildered, he observed the grinning Zuse pursuing his work. He couldn't stop now just like that. He must not.

Kyto's gaze changed, became more hungry. "Show me more...", he brought out panting.

Zuse didn't even look up. "Hm?"

There Kyto reached over the counter, clasping Zuse's sleeve. As he finally eyed him, the young programme exhaled shiveringly. "Please...", he breathed. "Show. Me. More. Please, Castor..."

Zuse put the bottle he just had in his Hand down, before saying with a wide grin: "I hoped so badly that you would ask me to do that.", whereupon they pressed their waiting mouths together again. Zuse interrupted the kiss for a short moment to scurry around the bar, grabbed Kyto's head then and yanked it down to his.

This kiss was different from the first one, wilder, more vigorous. Longingly, Kyto squeezed his body against Zuse's, as he felt how he let his tongue glide into his mouth again. While he had his hands pressed onto his back, Zuse let his fingers run through his thick hair, just like he had wished for it earlier. He clung to it, intesified the desire through the now emerging light pain even more, which made Kyto feel a flood of arousal rush through him. Gently, he pushed his counterpart away from him, looking down at himself in confusion, as he had noticed his body changing in the lower regions, though, Zuse reestablished the kiss at once.

His hands ceased from Kyto's hair, one he placed onto his shoulder, the other moved down, halting at his buttocks, grasping it and shoving it towards himself, so that Kyto could sense that Zuse's body had deformed to the same extent. Since they were so close together, they moved backwards like a unit, when Zuse took a few steps forward, until they reached one of the couches in the lounge.

Zuse interrupted the kiss. "Lie down.", he ordered panting.

The young programme obeyed promptly, his attentive, lusty eyes steadily fixed on his counterpart's face, who now placed one knee between Kyto's legs, shoving them apart, the other next to the with lechery trembling body under him, bent forward and kissed him again. Kyto could barely breathe, didn't pay attention to that, though, just enjoyed how Zuse licked over his lips, biting and sucking on them lightly. Then he suddenly desisted from doing so, wandered down with his mouth, skimmed Kyto's neck with it, while his hands slowly slid down his chest, whereby his black suit formed back at the touched areas. Gasping, Kyto viewed the spectacle, as Zuse had already reached his stomach, his hands gently put on his hips.

"How do you do that?", he asked, totally out of breath. In the moment Zuse raised his piercing silver eyes to his, another wave of arousal went through the black-haired. "Show me, Castor..."

Zuse smirked and sat up, taking Kyto's hands in his. "It's easy. Just imagine me..." His grin got wider. "... without my suit."

Kyto smiled. "I already did..."

Zuse let out a seductive laugh, then bit his bottom lip and let Kyto's hands glide down his own chest, so that the white fabric covering his body disappeared, until he sat there entirely naked.

Kyto's eyes widened. "Castor..." He pulled him down to himself and kissed him passionately, at which Zuse began to grind his pubic area against Kyto's, which in turn made the young programme interrupt the kiss to let out another quiet moan. Zuse used this to work his way down with his lips again, let Kyto's black suit disappear bit by bit, while his hands rested on his thighs. Before Zuse got where he headed to, he stopped at the lower abdomen. His hasty movements became calmer.

Kyto, who had closed his eyes to be able to completely concentrate on Zuse's touch, lifted his lids. Again the white-haired darted his intense eyes at Kyto's face, smirked, as he let one of his hands gently run over the young man's crotch, whereupon the part of his body Kyto had felt had changed was exposed and was now taking its space outside the tight suit. Kyto has never seen it in such a state, which was why he gave it a puzzled but interested look.

Zuse grinned amusedly. Kyto impersonated a wonderful mixture of innocence and lust which attracted him so much.

He kept observing his expression for a little while, then he licked over his lips and lowered his head towards the region Kyto was so fascinated of.

There the black-haired winced. "What are you doing?"

Zuse remained silent for a moment to revel in his curious face a bit, before whispering salaciously: "Something that will make you incredibly happy..." With these words he took Kyto's erection in his hand and put his lips onto the tip of it.

Kyto inhaled sharply, threw his head back, as the ecstasy seized him like an electric shock. He'd never sensed something that intense, that fiery, electrifying. With his sucking, licking and up-and-down movements of his hand on the hard part of his body, whose function Kyto hadn't known in the slightest up to now, Zuse gave him a feeling of vividness he hadn't considered possible.

Meanwhile, Zuse let his other hand wander up too, ran it under Kyto's left thigh and lifted it up, so that, beside the activities of his mouth and the right hand, he could also caress his curves. Then it slipped to the middle, rubbed Kyto's lightly wet entrance, before Zuse slowly let his finger slide in.

Kyto arched his back, couldn't keep the loud moan behind his lips. The euphoria within him was simply too magnificent.

"Kyto, precious?", the white-haired spoke in a calm tone and closed eyes, when he detached his lips from Kyto's stiff member for a moment. As a reply he received another moan. "If anything I'm doing makes you feel uncomfortable, you have to tell me immediately, yes?", he said softly, gently pushing his finger in and out of the stretching hole.

"No, no..." With his lids pressed together, he felt his way down to Zuse's head, shiveringly ran his fingers through his hair and continued with the hint of impatience in his voice: "Please, please, keep doing that..."

Zuse grinned and did as he was told. While his left grabbed the hard length even more firmly, he already used two fingers to increase Kyto's elation. After a while he accelerated all his activities on the body beneath him in a certain rhythm and Kyto's breathing accelerated with it. He ceased from Zuse's hair, pressed his hands on his face, so that his counterpart couldn't see how tears of happiness flooded his eyes, threatening to run down his cheeks.

Suddenly this wave of emotions stopped.

Kyto took his hands away, looking down with furrowed brow. Zuse had sat up again, only closing the programme's member with his left. While looking down at him, panting, the white-haired spitted into his free hand and slathered his own erection with it. Watching this, Kyto felt a thrill of anticipation arise within him. Then Zuse bent down to him.

"Why did you stop? Please, Castor, I can't-"

"Shh...", he hushed the young man. His face was only an inch away from his. "Don't worry, pretty boy, I promise it will get even better now..."

With that said, he kissed him passionately, pressing his own member against Kyto's entrance, until it gave in and he could shove himself in completely. Kyto broke the kiss to take a deep breath, which Zuse used to stroke his lips over his neck.

Pleasure rushed through Kyto, charged him like a batterie, filled him with energy and life. Additionally, he felt so connected with Castor like never before. Feeling this man inside of him aroused a feeling of joy within him that almost drove him crazy.

Zuse sucked on Kyto's neck, whilst grasping his hips firmly. Harder and harder, faster and faster he thrusted the stiff part of his body into the opening, took the louder and louder getting, more frequently coming moans as incentive. Kyto wrapped his arms and legs around him and, since he knew it would feel way better thereby, tensed the muscles in the lower region, so that they closed tightly around Zuse's erection.

There the man above him let out a moan as well, directly next to Kyto's ear. "Holy Grid, Kyto, are you tight..." Yet more energetic he moved between his thighs. "Oh, Kyto..."

"Castor..." The elation almost got unbearable.

On his naked skin green lines began to illuminate. Zuse licked over one on his collarbone, whereby it lit up even brighter, causing a twinge of delight drive through Kyto. He moaned loudly. Zuse sucked on a line on his neck. He moaned even louder.

"Kyto, I'm coming...", Zuse whispered shakily.

Kyto didn't know what that meant, however, he felt something coming within himself too. A wave of never ending bliss. With each movement of Zuse he got closer and closer to it.

"Castor...", he whispered. "Castor, yes..."

Zuse moaned.

A sudden electric shock seized Kyto. "CASTOR!"

He threw his head back, everything went white, so that he couldn't see a thing anymore, his whole body prickled strongly, became numb, _faded away underneath him._

_He felt nothing but happiness, endless happiness. The white around him formed smokey images. The lounge of the End Of Line Club, on whose back side was a small bar. Cam, looking at him with her dark eyes and a smile on her pink lips. The buidling he almost rammed with the light roadster, after freeing it from the thief. Susan Gifford, parting a sentry in two with her light sword. A face... The first face he'd seen. Silver eyes. Those lips. They formed words._

_"Your name is Kyto."_

_Your name is Kyto._

_Kyto._

_Oh, Kyto..._

"Kyto! Kyto, please wake up!"

Kyto blinked. At first he saw everything blurry, but then he recognised a face, the one he had just seen in his head and his sight got more acute.

"Kyto, are you okay?", Zuse asked with worry in his voice. As he didn't get any response, he grabbed the programme's shoulders, shook it lightly. "Please, say something!"

Finally, he found the strength to speak. "Can we repeat that anytime soon?", he asked croakily and managed to form a smile with his lips.

Zuse let out a sigh of relief and laughed. "Yes, yes of course we can repeat that, lovely."

"Great...", he breathed, closing his eyes for a moment, before looking down at himself and frowning. He wasn't naked anymore, his suit covered him from his feet to his stomach, where it ended in scattered black squares. Zuse was fully dressed again, almost at least, since he wasn't wearing the tailcoat-like part of it. What he was wearing now short-sleeved and without a collar.

"What happened?"

"You had an overload when you came and a little system crash, though, obviously your system rebooted on its own, in an instant." Zuse laughed shortly. "I have to say, I never made a programme have an overload during sex. That's flattering, my dear Kyto, you must have really liked it..."

"I did... And how long have I been gone?"

"About 2 microcycles. Long enough to get you halfway dressed, wiping the stuff off of you and get extremely worried about you. It was scary how your eyes went white suddenly and you didn't move anymore. You didn't even breathe!" Zuse handed him a glass vial filled with white-glowing liquid. "Oh, and I got that. Drink it."

"Which stuff was on me?"

"Energy secretion, of course." As Kyto gave him a questioning look, he added, grinning: "I will show you next time."

Zuse watched Kyto emptying the vial in one gulp and coughed thereupon. It reminded him of Susan half a cycle ago after her own reboot.

Kyto gave him the little phial back, watching the white-haired man bringing it behind the small bar of the lounge. Although he still had to breathe a bit heavily because of the exhaustion, he felt a wonderful inner peace filling his whole body.

"Castor?"

"Yes?" Zuse strolled back to him, signifying him to move to the side, so that he could lie down next to Kyto, facing him.

"That was amazing. Thank you..."

Zuse smirked. "One never gets anything worse than 'amazing' from me. I am a professional with cycles long experience. But to make it amazing, it always needs two. So, you don't have to thank me, when we-"

There he got interrupted by Kyto squeezing his lips onto his. Zuse began to grin during the kiss and put his right onto Kyto's hip, gently stroking it. Then Kyto pushed away from him again, looked into those silver eyes that looked a bit tired now, but still beautiful, and embraced Zuse, pressing his cheek against his chest.

Zuse paused perplexed.

He actually hadn't planned to cuddle, he barely did that anyway, since in most cases it made him feel uncomfortable. Only with Susan it had been a given, because he also stayed overnight often times and it would have been very impolite to refuse to do that, pushing her away from him in her own bed. Besides, with her strength she could have done anything with him anyway. One of her many features he'd admired.

'Why not?', Zuse eventually thought and slowly put his arm around Kyto, which made his smile even bigger.

"You're my best friend, Castor...", he breathed.

"I know, Kyto." Zuse ran his fingers through his styled black hair. "I know..." Then he kissed his forehead, resting his head against his with closed eyes and noticed how relaxation rushed through his body, making him more and more tired.

Kyto felt the same, plus a tingling sensation in his stomach area. When he fell asleep, he wished he could lie in Castor's arms forever.


	10. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note: Hello :) Sorry for the delay and sorry that this is so long, I just didn't want to part it again. Sooo after the last chap, of course there're some more sexy things in here ;)**_

_**ENJOY and REVIEW, my lovely programmes!**_

**END OF LINE**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 6<strong>

With one hand at the back of his head and the other holding his disc, Kyto lay on the bed of his apartment. While looking through the files, his thoughts revolved around what had happened yesterday between him and his best friend Castor. If he wanted to tell somebody about it, he wouldn't be able to find the right words, since it has been so unbelievable. The tingling sensation that had emerged during this incident now overcame him every time he thought of him, of Castor.

Castor, Castor, Castor...

His name steadily crossed his mind and even if he wanted to get rid of it, he wouldn't manage to do so.

On his way back to his apartment, where he had planned to recall the the events from last night, he had discovered a small shop in he lower level he lived in, which stocked illegal files, including one called 'User Knowledge 8: LOVE - Theory&Practice' he had made off with unobstrusively. It contained much text, though, before reading it, Kyto concentrated on the images shown in it. Drawn pictures of male Users with weird hair and a wooden instrument, looking up to a window in a tower a female User with pointy hat was standing in, were stored in this file, as well as illustrations of women in long white dresses and ones of erotic nature following. The latter were the ones he was more interested in at the moment.

On these pictures various couples were practising what he and Castor had done yesterday, in the most different styles. Sometimes Kyto had to take a closer look, zooming into the image or twist it, in order to understand what was happening on it. When he opened a picture file showing two men in the same position he and Castor had been in 2 millicycles ago, he had to close it at once, since the sight of it sent another wave of arousal through him.

Kyto closed his eyes, allowed Castor's scent, Castor's touch, his eyes filling his mind completely.

He had to see him again. Now.

Kyto put his disc onto his back, leaving his apartment as fast as he could. Through the light rail, it didn't take long until he already approached the elevator to the End Of Line Club, the doors of which opened suddenly.

The sight took Kyto's breath away, his heart began to race, the tingling sensation spread again and he smiled involutarily.

Castor, seemingly in thoughts, exited the lift, strolling over the small square in front of it towards his light roadster. He looked different than usual, was wearing a long, close-fitting coat with a high collar, which stuck out from the waist in a pleated way to emphasise his slim shape even more, and a top hat, whose brim seemed to be out of glass, glowing in white and perfectly to his cane thereby. His makeup was modified in such a way that his eyes appeared catlike, emphasising its colour even more by the darker edging.

"Hey, Castor!", Kyto called, as he finally found his breath and the courage to do so.

The man in white looked up, grinning widely. "Hello, lovely! Did you sleep well after such a demanding night?"

Kyto came to a stand next to him. "Yeah. And you?"

"It was a rather short, but restful sleeping cycle. Thank you for asking."

"Castor, you..." He laughed, felt the heat rushing into his face. "You look amazing!"

"I know, thank you.", Castor replied with a smirk. "Are you on your way to the EOLC."

"Actually I wanted to talk to you..." Kyto looked to the ground, since then he could keep the urge to fling his arms around his neck under control.

"Really? Do you need anything?"

"I... uh... I wanted to ask if you are in the mood of spending time with me before the club opens..."

Castor inhaled hissing. "Weeeell, I already have plans for tonight, hence the getup."

Kyto's smile faded. The memory of Castor wrapping his arm around this groupie girl forced its way into his thoughts, but his mind-self slung it away with a thick metal club. "Oh... Which plans?"

"I am invited to a party here in the top level. Everybody who is anybody has to show up there. Besides, I have to do business there anyway, so I just wanted to start out. Some other time, yes?"

Kyto forced himself to smile. "Okay."

Castor eyed him for a moment. "After the first time one can get quite impatient, I know. But there is nothing to worry about, Kyto. I won't distance myself from you, I only do this after a one-night-stand, but what we had yesterday was fantastic and I absolutely plan to repeat it. So no pouting now, okay?"

A smirk played around the young programme's lips again. "Okay..."

Castor gently grabbed Kyto's jaw, pulled him down to himself and kissed him. "See you soon, my pretty overload." With these words he got into the roadster and hit the road.

Kyto let out a deep sigh. Then he took a quick look around to make sure that noone was around and hopped up and down then squeaking.

* * *

><p>Zuse already noticed all the many programmes standing at the entrance of the building from afar. Every time such an event took place, masses gathered, mostly programmes from the lower levels, in order to catch a glimpse of the members of society's upper class. Rarely, very rarely, it occured that they let one in thereby, if one of the party's guests spotted somebody who appealed to him or her. Most probably, several of these programmes here hoped for such a miracle as well, however, Zuse knew exactly that it wouldn't happen, not with this guest list.<p>

While slowly driving up, he observed the invited programmes, how the door of their car was kept open for them and how they walked into the building, not deigning one look at the cheering programmes behind the railing. As recently as half a cycle ago, he would have hated them for doing that, for regarding themselves as something better, just because they were written for a purpose that enabled them to live an unbrudened life, or they reached this goal by working for CLU. Or both. Zuse had had to work hard for his current position, just like his best friend Susan Gifford, who had, during her time as Arris, the champion of the games, insisted on giving every single one of her fans an autograph for hours. Back then he had watched her full of admiration as she was carrying out her generous deeds, had loved it when they begged for an image file of the two together, as if they wished for them to be a couple.

But now... Zuse would love nothing better than to pass by those programmes, wrinkling his nose, too. They didn't deserve his attention at all, since they had adored Susan at first and then let her fall, backstabbed her. He hated all of them. Though, he knew he couldn't show it, had to keep it for himself and act as polite as always to not risk his good reputation without which he wouldn't have anything.

So, when he got out of his light roadster, he just put on a wide smile, waved at the cheering programmes, but totally ignored their begging calls for autographs, as he strolled towards the folding doors straight ahead in the most elegant way. Though, in the middle of the way he stopped once and threw his top hat into the crowd, which was followed by loud squees. A broad-shouldered man opened one of the doors for him, but before he entered, he turned around once more and gave his fans a wink.

Almost all the invited guests seemed to be present already, standing around some round tables next to the u-shaped long bar, running from one side of the huge hall over its back and up at the other side again. At the centre was a dancefloor, where many had assembled, but it was wide enough to provide everyone enough space. On the whole this wasn't an efficient concept at all, in Zuse's opinion, since by the narrow circumstances during dancing in a club, for example, the systems of its guests overheated easier, making them order more drinks, though, here this seemed to be meaningless anyway. The prices here were overexaggerated, everyone knew that, but all of the guests had such an immense personal budget on hand that it didn't state a problem at all, on the contrary it made most of them feel even richer than they actually were. Zuse wouldn't order anything here. He definitely wouldn't charge his identity card for such a trash they sold here, not in the slightest.

With that in mind, he just walked past the bar, directly towards a certain programme at the very back of the room. His name was Bernstein, the organiser of this event, although Shaddix and Zuse preferred to call him 'Cunt in Shit-Coat', since he was an extremely smug man without having any reason for being that way. Despite boasting and nagging he wasn't capable of any skills. Everything he had was either stolen or dropped into his lap. Bernstein, the talentless, moronic lucky beggar. He wouldn't be able to survive in this cruel world, if CLU wasn't his main financier.

As Zuse reached him, whose back was facing him, he tipped onto his shoulder with his cane, whereupon the man turned away from the female programme he was talking to at the moment.

"Castor!" He carried out a long-winded gesture with the glass in his hand.

"Bernstein.", Zuse replied dryly.

"To be honest I am surprised to see you here. I can't remember putting you onto my guest list, my extravagant midget."

"Oh, I guess your walnut brian just plays a trick on you, dear! Which mentally retarded programme wouldn't invite the most popular club owner of the Grid to a high society party?", Zuse laughed buoyantly.

"You the most popular club owner? Well, the numerous guests in MY club said something else..." Grinning, Bernstein sipped on his drink.

"Funny that you call 5 numerous." Zuse's amused tone turned into a faked compassionate one. "They must have forgotten to pay, though, since I could have sworn that I saw the entrance of your 'club' boarded up when I came here. Bernstein, you seem so pale all of a sudden! Are you sure you are feeling fine? Oh, a closure must be so horrible!"

Bernstein's expression reflected discomfort. His looked in every direction, just not in Zuse's. "No closure, nonsense! We... we're renovating!"

Zuse raised his brows. "Really?"

"Yes. They'll all love it. You should brace yourself to lose some of your regulars to me, since it will be bigger and more bombastic than everything they've ever seen!"

"Yes, the vast construction site within this oppressing darkness behind the shutters of your 'club' must be stunning."

Bernstein glared at him. After a pause of silence, he raised to speak again: "Can't you chatter on to someone else, Castor?"

"Oh, believe me, I'd like nothing more than turn around and attend to something else, so that my sense of aesthetics does not feel offended by your ugly visage anymore. But I can't. Not before I talked to you about a... let's say delicate matter." He darted a glance at the woman Bernstein had spoken to earlier and cleared his throat. "A matter which requires absolute discretion."

The man frowned and turned around, spotting the woman standing behind him, what he obviously didn't expect. "Why are you still here, huh? Don't you see we're busy?! Fuck off, bitch!"

The woman pouted and scuffed off.

Zuse had to shake his head to get rid of the shock caused by this incredible coarseness. "Anyway... You're still in contact with the systemadministrator, am I right?"

The programme laughed out loud. "If you want me to put in a good word for you, you're more stupid than I thought!"

"No, there is no need for that anymore. I..." Zuse took a short look around to check, if anybody was eavesdropping their conversation. "I want you to bring him something." Still letting his eyes wander through the room, he handed a small cube to Bernstein.

"What's that?"

"Information. There's nothing more you need to know. Just bring it to the central office and deliver my regards."

"And why don't you do it yourself?"

Zuse finally turned to his counterpart again. "You have been seen mixing with CLU douzens of times. Everyone knows about your cooperation with him. And let's be honest, YOU do not have a reputation that could suffer from such activities. I, however, do."

"Ah, because of this Zuse-guy, right? Nobody would beg for his help anymore, if they knew about you being in cahoots with CLU."

Zuse didn't say anything, just kept smiling.

"Alright, Castor. I'll do it, but only if you tell me more about this information."

"I believe, you must have misunderstood me. This is not you doing me a favour or a deal, where you can demand any kind of return service. CLU wants this information and you will deliver it to him. Full stop." He leant forward. "Unless you aim at a visit from Rinzler and his black guards, of course..."

The colour completely drained from Bernstein's face. He swallowed, while Zuse kept piercing him with his gaze. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, making him turn around. A young woman was standing in front of him.

"I am sorry to interrupt you... I just wanted to ask of you want to dance with me."

Zuse eyed her. She had light blue circuitry colour, was slim and quite short and wore a high, dark brown ponytail and a wide smile.

At her sight, Zuse's expression lit up as well. "You know, sweatheart, it surprises me that you pretty little thing haven't been invited to a dance already." Turning to Bernstein, he said: "Get this done as fast as possible, yes, my dear?", before he already got dragged to the dancefloor.

The music that was playing now was calmer than before, with a steady, pulsating rhythm, so that Zuse just spun the lady around, bringing her into a close dancing position in front of him. She seemed surprised, needed a moment to get used to the posture, but with Zuse in the lead she quickly got the hang of it.

While moving slowly to the beat, she said in a seductive tone: "If someone told me that I would dance with Castor himself only one cycle ago, I would have called the program crazy."

Zuse laughed charmingly. "And still you just walked up to me, asking for a dance as the very first of this evening, full of determination and completely without fear in your beautiful eyes. How come that you didn't have such confidence just a cycle ago?"

"Well, many things can happen in a cycle."

"How true..." Instantly, pictures of Susan forced their way into his mind, which he mentally shoved away to be able to only concentrate on the woman in front of him.

"Yes, for example, I got I new job through which I got a chance to get onto the guest list of this party."

"Congratulations!"

"Thank you. I got to know so many interesting programs the last cycle and I went to the games for the first time and then it even was such an exciting one like 'Her Fall'!"

Zuse just nodded, looking away. He definitely didn't want to think about this so-called exciting game, far less talk about it.

"Apropos." Zuse's eyes fixed onto hers again. "I heard you spent some time with this Susan. Have you two been friends?"

"I'd rather call it a manus-manum-lavat-relationship."

"A... what?"

"Comes from Seneca, a User-philosopher of ancient Rome. It means that Susan gave me what I wanted and I, in return, gave her what she wanted. That's it.", he lied. "So I don't really know, if I could claim to have been one of her friends, it was more like..."

"Manus manum lavat.", she said, smirking.

Zuse smiled lightly. "You're a fast learner."

She laughed, looking to the ground for a moment, while Zuse let his gaze wander around the room in thoughts.

"Nevertheless... they say you knew her very well..."

Nothing changed about his relaxed expression, though, within him there had been a sudden swing of mood. What had he just seen in her eyes? Had it been fear? His good knowledge of programme nature completely unveiled the woman's frame of mind to him: Even though she was trying hard to mask it, he saw that she was slightly nervous. The way he could assess the situation, this pretty programme intended to get informations about Susan. Zuse didn't know why, but he knew he had to be extremely careful now to keep protecting his best friend.

So he just replied with a shrug, smiling at his counterpart, while pursuing the dance in the most perfect way.

"Did you know about it in advance? That she was a copy of a User."

He laughed. "No, of course not!"

"So... She didn't tell you anything about herself?"

"That would've been hardly possible. Every now and then you have to talk to each other in between the pleasures, you know?" Amusement sounded in his voice.

"And what did she tell you?", she asked still with a Smile on her face, seemingly relaxed, but Zuse noticed her impatience.

"Hm, let me think... For instance she would perceive the top level as more pleasant than the lower ones. Are you feeling the same way or have you always been living up here, my dear...?"

"JackiX. And well, I do perceive the top level as pleasant, indeed."

'Clever choice of words.', Zuse thought. Apparently, she wasn't keen to disclose anything about herself either.

"For example it's easier to make friends here, due to the lesser scepticism.", she continued. "Did Susan do the same here? Make friends?"

"You mean apart from me?"

"I thought you weren't friends."

"I said I wouldn't know, if I could claim to have been her friend, though, now that I gave it a thought, I'd say you could call the thing between her and myself a friendship."

"Even though she didn't tell you much about herself?"

There an inner rage overcame him, which he could keep to himself just barely. "I tell what I know about her." He gently pushed JackiX away in a short dance posture and pulled her back in a light twist, so that he stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, during the dance. He spoke quietly but emphatically, feeling her body stiffening a bit at his words: "Susan Gifford would have loathed such parties, where programmes refused to share their wealth with the poorer ones, although they would be nothing without them. She would have hated the music, the guests, the location, simply everything, except one thing she would have loved for sure..." He spun her around in an elegant way, her lightly widened dark eyes looking into his silver ones. "She would have loved to dance with me, just like we do it. And believe me, I would love to dance with her right now as well."

Her expression reflected guilt. Obviously, she regretted to have drilled him with questions, Zuse's mind couldn't find an other explanation at short notice.

As a harder beat and more casual rhythm began to spread, he enlarged the gap between them to a few inches, about to continue to dance with her in another way, but she gently pushed him away from her.

"Sorry, I'm a bit out of breath.", he laughed. "I'll quickly get a drink at the bar, okay?"

There she already wanted to rush off, though, Zuse grasped her hand. "I come with you."

"No!", she replied quickly with a smile, a bit too quickly for Zuse's liking. "I also want to freshen up a bit, you know?" The voice became softer, more seductive, as she got closer to him, putting her hand onto his chest. "Don't worry, I'll be right back. Just stay here and warm up a bit, because when I come back I'll brim with energy and then let's see if you're still in the lead, okay?"

He eyed her, grinning. "Alright..."

Zuse held his eyes fixed on her, as she wound through the dancing crowd towards the bar.

What was this young woman up to? Why did she want information about Susan? Was she a member of a new resistance, perhaps? Improbable. He'd never seen a rebell that as wealthy as to be part of such an event, with the exception of Susan of course. But maybe this woman was an exception too. An other possibility was that she was just driven by curiosity.

Suddenly, a programme positioning in front of him blocked his view of her, making him wince. He looked up, directly into Kyto's smirking face.

"Kay!", he exclaimed in surprise.

"They're not partying as hard as in the EOLC here, but it's still nice.", the black-haired said, while slowly dancing to the music.

Zuse laughed, trying to look over Kyto's shoulder and moving him to the side step by step to not lose JackiX out of sight completely. "It's great to see you here, but how did you go past the doorkeepers?"

"I simply said you were waiting for me in here and they let me in."

"I don't think this was the reason they let you pass." Zuse shortly took his gaze from JackiX, looking into Kyto's dazzingly green eyes. "Most of the male guests here are not attractive at all, however, they have to keep up the good image of this event. So, of course they let you in. You and I, dearest, we bring the sex appeal. Although... it is to say..." Something interesting caught his eye, making him speak slowlier. A man had come to a stand next to woman he had danced with, seemingly talking to her, although they were not looking at each other. "... it is to say that... attraction... is a matter of opinion."

"What do you mean?", Kyto asked, whilst getting even closer to Zuse.

"Some perceive a programme as attractive that we don't.", he answered in thoughts, still fully concentrating on those two at the bar, whereby he wasn't quite aware of Kyto cautiously letting the fingers of his right glide over Zuse's side.

"For me YOU are attractive...", he said in a teasing tone, eyed his dancing partner's body he had longed for so badly.

Zuse laughed, but didn't take his gaze from the two programmes. "Thank you, pretty boy, but you just gained the freedom to explore this world. You don't know what it has to offer yet. Besides, I guess, you are still a bit intoxicated by yesterday's occurrences." The man looked at the your woman, grabbed her arm, so that she did the same with him. They seemed to have an argument.

"Well, these... occurrences from yesterday are the actual reason why I came here..." Zuse felt how Kyto put his arms around his neck, dancing very close to him, which let an unexpected twitch of arousal rush through him, totally interrupting his thoughts. "I want more of that... now..."

Zuse eyed Kyto with a grin, watched him rub himself against his body to the rhythm of the song in smooth movements. This gorgeous view let Zuse's train of thoughts lie fallow completely, just let him answer with the gentle touch of his hands and slow hip circles, until a sudden call, which was drowned out by the music, made him remember what he was actually about to observe instead of this body in front of him.

His head flipped to the side. He could only just spot JackiX getting dragged away by this man, before the two disappeared in the masses. Frantically looking for them, he quickly stated: Kyto, I am sorry, but I really have to-"

"I got an illegal book about Users with pictures of people having sex. I had to think of you at every single one of them and... oh, it felt so good...", Kyto interrupted him breathing, solely focussed on the man in front of him and the friction between them.

He wanted Castor. At once. He needed him, had to have him.

Zuse swallowed. He tried to completely concentrate on the search for those two programmes, though, Kyto made it extremely difficult for him. His body wanted to attend to the one of his counterpart, but his mind desperately reacted against it, recalled JackiX' face to make it easier for him to identify her in the dancing crowd. Hectically, his eyes moved from side to side, trying to catch sight of her in an almost fanatic way. "Kyto, please, I'm bu-"

"Fuck me."

The words, breathed into his ear full of lust and desire, let Zuse freeze. At one blow his concentration faded away. A shiver ran down his spine and he exhaled slowly, closing his eyes for a moment, before lightly shook his head. "Kyto, it's..." He looked up into these dazzingly green eyes. "It's really naughty to say something like that in public." Zuse let his hand wander down Kyto's chest, making his counterpart's breathing heavier. "Really, really naughty..."

Then he took the grinning programme's hand and pulled him through the dancing masses. When they reached the backside of the hall, Kyto spotted a long corridor, flooded with red light, in front of which a woman stood behind a counter, smiling at them.

"Hello!", Zuse greeted her. "A room for two, please."

"Just a nano.", she replied with a beeping voice, typing something into the luminous screen right in front of her. "With toys?"

"No need for toys." The white-haired eyed Kyto lustily. "Not yet..."

Kyto, curiously peeking into the red corridor in the meantime, saw one of the many doors on its sides opening and two totally relaxed women strolled out of it, holding hands. Gazing after them, he asked Zuse, who was handed a card and guided Kyto through the corridor: "There're really rooms to rent for something like that?"

Zuse laughed, whilst comparing the numbers and symbols on the card with those above the doors. "You are so sweetly innocent. But don't worry..." When he found the right door, he held the card on it, whereby it got unlocked. "... I will cast all this innocence out of you." He pushed the door open, pulled Kyto inside, slammed it shut behind him and already yanked his head down to his to press his lips onto those incredible soft ones.

Instantly Kyto felt this unbearable, but wonderful tingling sensation in his stomach. A moan escaped his throat, which Zuse quickly used to thrust his tongue into his counterpart's mouth in an almost brutal way. He grabbed his hips, pushed them forwards so abruptly that Kyto's back hit the wall behind him, before Zuse lifted his right hand, buried its fingers in the young programme's black hair and yanked it back with a quiet growl, so that he could continue his work with his mouth on the now bare neck.

Kyto, wrapping his arms around the man in front of him, gasped, had his brows furrowed out of pain and the accompanying ecstasy. He didn't know why, but how Castor treated him right now, rough, ruthless, predatory, aroused him enormously. Instinctively he raised his left leg, whereupon he immediately felt the hand ceasing from his hair, sliding under his thigh and together with the lower part of his body pressed it hard against the white-haired programme at one go, which made Kyto moan once again.

Suddenly a dull scream sounded.

Zuse stopped sucking on Kyto's neck at once, looking around. "What was that?", he asked in an alarmed tone. The voice had sounded familiar to him, though, his nearly overloaded system wasn't able to identify it.

Kyto laughed. "Apparently, someone next door has as much fun as we have." He grinned at the white-haired, who still stared in an other direction with an suspicious gaze. He waited for another short moment, then Kyto gently stroked over his jawline, turning the man's face to his, where he kissed him passionately.

Zuse tried to fully concentrate on Kyto's tongue, carrying out a dance with his own inside their mouths, on his leg in his hand and his pelvis, moving in cricles against his, whereby he could perfectly sense Kyto's stiff member through the tight suit, however, the scream resonated in his head, distracting him.

He hissed, pushed away from his counterpart and said: "Turn around."

Kyto gave him a questioning look.

Emphatically, he repeated: "Turn. Around."

He took his hips and swung the young programme around by himself. Kyto let loose a confused sound, as Zuse's thumb ran down his spine, so that the upper part of his black suit disappeared. He bent forward, licked over the black-haired's neck, sucked on it, even bit it lightly, which made Kyto shiver with pleasure. Though, his inner embers blazed up to a real rage of fire only when he felt Castor rubbing his pubic area against his backside in a slow rhythm and thereby squeezing the hard-on in his trousers firmly between his thighs.

"Please, Castor, fuck me...", he moaned almost whimpering, which was followed by a muffled dark laugh of the man behind him.

Suddenly another scream rang out, this time it was more like anxious shreeking.

Both spun around in shock. After a short moment of silence, Zuse took the disc from his back and dashed off. Kyto followed him out into the corridor and to the next door, where he hit the reception-card-scanning part with the glowing edge of his white disc and kicked it open.

They stood in the door frame, having their widened eyes fixed on the young woman with no longer high, dark brown ponytail and pale light blue circuitry colour, who lay on the ground next to a bed frantically breathing and staring at the cubes in her hand, which crumbled from the gaping wound on her stomach.

While Kyto just stood there with his mouth agape, Zuse regained his composure. "Kyto, get help! Go!"

He winced, turned around and ran off as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Zuse rushed to the open window behind the bed and could only just catch a glimpse of a man with short white hair and olive toned skin, looking up to him, before making off with his light cycle. Wasn't that the man who had dragged JackiX away earlier?

A cough behind him interrupted Zuse's thoughts. In an instant he knelt on the ground, supporting her head. "Don't worry, JackiX, I will fix that.", he said, while carefully taking her disc from her back. When he opened her code, he froze. Orange. Too much orange. Too many flashing error reports. He tried some programmer tricks, navigated through this jumble of files with insanely quick movements of his fingers, however, nothing helped. As a former interpreter, he had a broad knowledge of source codes, though, he couldn't perform miracles.

With sorrow in his face, he looked down at the woman beneath him, whose eyes widened even more at the sight of his expression, making her cough again. Zuse sat her up, wrapped his Arm around her, so that her torso was propped and her head leant against his shoulder. "Sh, calm down. It won't hurt as much, if you stop fighting, precious...", he breathed soothingly.

"C-Castor...", she croaked.

"I'm here, beautiful, I'm here."

"N-no, no... Yo-you...", she brought out, panting. "You... we... Susan..."

Zuse frowned. "Did you say Susan?"

"T-they... they think... she wants them to do that... But I..." She coughed again. "I don't want to..."

"Who thinks Susan wants them to do what? What did they want to force you to?" Zuse spoke quickly, since he was aware that he didn't have much time left.

"Re-re-res..." She cringed and screamed out, pressing her hand onto the spreading wound. Zuse held her hand, showed her how to breathe in order to calm down to some extent. Thick tears ran down her cheeks.

"Re-re...", Zuse wondered out loud. "Resistance! JackiX, do you mean a resistance?!"

She nodded, squeezing her lids together, as another piercing pain rushed through her body. Her circuitry colour flickered.

"The resistance wants you to do something, you didn't approve of!", Zuse concluded. "What was it, JackiX?"

"They... want to kill..."

His eyes widened. "Okay... Who is their target?"

"Nononono...", he whispered. "Who is their target? Is it CLU?"

Her breathing got slower.

"No, dammit, come on! Who is their damn target, JackiX?!"

She tried to say something, but there she froze and a dull veil lay over her eyes.

Zuse stared at the dead programme in his arms. The sound of quick steps and Kyto's voice reached his ears: "In there!"

The black-haired came rushing onto the room, followed by three sentries, who paused now. Cautiously Zuse put her small body to the ground, stroked over her face to close her lids. Then he stood up, turning to the others.

"There was nothing I could do.", he murmured and walked towards the shocked looking Kyto, who he now grabbed by his arm and pulled him out to the red corridor. "Come, let's leave. Now the crime scene belongs to the sentries." Kyto wanted to glance back over his shoulder, but Zuse prevented him from doing so. "No, Kyto. I do not want you to see a programme derezzing. So please, don't turn around and let's go."

* * *

><p>Sipping on his drink, Zuse gazed into space.<p>

He had brought Kyto, who had been totally haggard, to his apartment, whose safety measures he had pimped up even more, while telling the young man that he assumed the incident to be simple robbery, an act of mercilessness of evil programmes, since he wanted to keep the conversation he had conducted with JackiX shortly before her death to himself. He hadn't even told Jarvis, who had contacted him afterwards, since Bernstein had told him about the murder that had taken place at a party financed by CLU. Zuse had explained the whole situation to him in all honesty, just omitted the details about his connection to JackiX.

Now he sat in his club, thought about what happened and what could have been the reasons for this incident. JackiX had been a member of a resistance. A resistance... Of course there were still rebellious programmes, such as the ones who had hacked into CLU's database, but they were scattered individuals. Zuse hadn't considered it possible that shortly after the obliteration of Susan's resistance another organised troup could form, a troup that... planned to kill somebody. But whom?

The white-haired sighed and took the disc from his back. For a long while he just kept staring at the paused memory sequence that showed a man with short white hair and olive toned skin.


End file.
